Date:          Thu, 20 Nov 1997 16:08:57 -0800 (PST)
From:          Stephen Dunifer <frbspd@crl.com>

Bay Area micropower broadcasters are calling a press conference and Free
Speech support demonstration to protest the FCC raids in Tampa, Florida
and earlier actions against other micropower broadcasters accross the
country.  It will take place on Tuesday, November 25 at  5 PM in front of
the Oakland Federal Building - see press release.  Other micropower
broadcasters and their supporters are urged to do the same at their
nearest Federal Building or close fascimile there of on the same day.

Stephen Dunifer
 

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FREE RADIO BERKELEY
1442A Walnut St., #406
Berkeley, CA 94709

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20

FCC RESPONDS TO MICROPOWER BROADCASTING
COURT VICTORY
WITH  A SWAT TEAM
 
 

One week after Federal Judge Claudia Wilken refused to grant the FCC a
permanent injunction to shut down Free Radio Berkeley and ordered the FCC
to respond to specific Constitutional questions, the response came not in
the form of legal brief as requested but in the form of a SWAT team
busting down the door of Tampa, Florida micropower broadcaster Doug
Brewer.  At 6 a.m. Wednesday, November 19 Doug Brewer and his wife were
visited in their home by a 20 person Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force
(comprised of Federal Marshals, a SWAT team, local police, Customs, and a
self-identified CIA agent) led by the FCC.  With automatic weapons trained
on them they were ordered to the floor where they were handcuffed face
down with gun muzzles at their head.  For the next 12 hours they were
detained in their own home, not even allowed to go to the bathroom alone,
while agents stripped their home of anything remotely related to radio
transmission equipment.  Police cordoned off the block around their home,
the site of the micropower broadcasting station, and brought in a crane to
dismantle his broadcasting tower.

At the same time other members of the same task force were busy shutting
down two more micropower broadcasting stations in the Tampa area.  One
man, Loni Kobres, was taken to jail and not released until he signed
papers agreeing not to take any action to recover equipment which had been
seized.  Radio X had its equipment seized as well with one of its members
spending a brief time in jail.

Commenting on this latest development, Stephen Dunifer of Free Radio
Berkeley, said: "This certainly shows that the FCC has nothing but
contempt for due process and the Bill of Rights.  It is clear that the FCC
is carrying out its marching orders given to it earlier this year by the
National Association of Broadcasters who have begun a search and destroy
campaign against micropower broadcasting. "

Speaking for SF Liberation Radio, Richard Edmondson stated: " The raid
against Doug Brewer and other microbroadcasters in Florida, coming as it
has just a week after the Federal Court ruling in California, is a display
of lawless thuggery which demonstrates to me more clearly than ever that
the US Government does not care about its own courts, its own laws, or its
own Constitution."

In response to this latest attack on micropower broadcasting Bay Area
micropower broadcasters will be holding a press conference and Free Speech
support demonstration at the Oakland Federal Building on Tuesday, November
25 at 5 PM.

Background material on the legal case and micropower broadcasting is
available on the following WEB sites:  www.368hayes.com,
www.freeradio.org, www.radio4all.org.