The other day I was perusing my database of old stories and blog entries and realized that Lasar's Letter on the Federal Communications Commission is one year old!
A History of LLFCC
Although I posted the first serious article [0] for this site on November 20th, 2005, the idea for it came to me some years ago under strange circumstances.
It was 1999. A pissed off bureaucrat had shut down my favorite listener supported station, KPFA in Berkeley. Even worse, several board members of the station's non-profit owner—the Pacifica Foundation—started pushing the idea of selling the frequency. Much of the San Francisco Bay Area worked itself into quite a froth over this. You can read all about it in my internationally unrenowned book Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio's Civil War [1].
In any event, I too became quite alarmed at the possibility of KPFA's sale, and so I went to the Web site of the Federal Communications Commission to see if I could keep watch over any suspicious transactions. There I found something called the Daily Digest [2], to which one could subscribe. I did, and thus received a daily e-mail detailing all kinds of FCC related doings: license sales, indecency decisions, rulings, notices, fines, and so on. I faithfully read this document each day in the hope that if some sneaky Pacifica board member tried to sell KPFA's license, I could sound the alarm and save the hour.
Happily, the hour never came. Such a fuss had been raised over the behavior of Pacifica that its principals never dared to execute their dreams of liquidation. I, however, had become addicted to reading the Daily Digest, with its complex opinions, announcements of rulemakings, and disclosures of endless power struggles in the telecommunications world.
And so I resolved that after I finished my book on the Great Pacifica War, I would start a Web site dedicated to reading and analyzing FCC documents. That I did in November of 2005, launching Lasar's Letter on the Federal Communications Commission, or LLFCC as I call it, in the true FCC acronym spirit.
LLFCC's Mission
LLFCC chronicles the FCC's activities mostly by reading the Commission's Web site: www.fcc.gov [3], and the public filing databases available at the site. I don't live in Washington, D.C. and I don't have the money to follow FCC officials around as they hop from conference to convention. And so while I occasionally interview people, I usually sit at my computer in my basement office in San Francisco and read Notices of Proposed Rulemakings, Final Notices, reports, statements of the Commissioners, and proceeding filings.
The proceeding filings are most important because they reveal what powerful forces in our society want the FCC to do.
It amazes what I find just mucking around in the publicly available databases: the Homeland Security Agency urging [3] the FCC not to take certain actions against pretexters; African-American city mayors accusing [3] AT&T of racism; FCC Commissioners all but admitting [3] that the agency's auction system is corrupt.
But I don't want to give the impression that the purpose of this site is just to "expose" the FCC. I support the FCC. I'm inspired by the vital services that the agency performs: particularly management of the Universal Service Fund, which ensures that rural areas and the poor have access to basic telephone service, and the enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act in telecommunications. LLFCC is not a media democracy or investigative site; it's not a site dedicated to the perspective of some technology company, and it's not a libertarian "free market" site either.
In the end, LLFCC is about learning about the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is, after all, a regulatory institution that is legally obligated to solicit your input on matters of national importance. So pay attention to it!
U2 can write and/or blog for LLFCC
Last month my programmer friend Jason Randell set up this great content management system for the site, which means that you can register [3]. Registering means you'll automatically receive LLFCC's email newsletter at least once a week. But having registered, you can also apply for a blog account [3] and blog on media regulation issues. If you are feeling even more adventurous, you can join the LLFCC news staff, which includes, in order of joining up, Bob Mason, Jay Koch, Lauren J. Powell, Carmen Ausserer, and myself. Please contact us [3] if this piques your interest.
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