In article ,
Buck wrote:
As for the local enforcement officers having permission to enforce the
illegal CBs, I believe I remember that that bill was overturned. I
hope so and am glad if it was. I don't know many police that know the
difference between the CB and Ham radio. My goodness, they can't even
tell the difference between a ham rig and a cell phone even when you
hand them a copy of the law that tells them to leave radio operators
alone.
I checked, and it appears that the bill passed back in 2000. It
amended the Communications Act of 1934, adding subsection (f) to USC
47 chapter 5 subchapter III Part I Section 302a [whew!].
The new subsection allows a state or local government to pass a law
which forbids the use of any CB radio not authorized by the FCC,
and/or the unauthorized use of CB equipment on frequencies between 24
and 35 MHz. In effect, this subsection overrides the general rule
that only the FCC has jurisdiction over radio operation - it grants
local governments the right to claim a limited jurisdiction in this
case.
So, the local police don't end up enforcing an FCC regulation
directly... but they can enforce a *local* law which has the
same effect, if the local government chooses to pass one. If the
local government doesn't pass a local law to this effect, the police
have no jurisdiction.
There's a whole bunch of verbiage about appealing local decisions to
the FCC, about the FCC's responsibility for providing technical
guidance to local governments about doing this right, etc.
For the gory details, see
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/47C5.txt
about 40% of the way down through the text.
It's possible that this subsection has been challenged in court, or
even overturned, but I'm not aware of any case in which this is
happened.
I have no idea how many state and local governments (if any) have
passed laws, or prosecuted illegal CB operation, under the authority
granted by this subsection.
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
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