After numerous fines levied in New York City, the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau is taking its pirate hunt up the coast to Massachusetts. Late last week, the FCC warned several Boston area landowners over unauthorized radio broadcasts allegedly originating from their properties.
These warnings, tied to properties in Dorchester, Randolph, Brockton, Mattapan, and Boston, target both individual and organizational landowners. Those names include Pierre Napoleon, Pierre Forges, Marie Pierre, Hugues and Clauda St. Fleur, Andre Jeanty and Racimene Jeanty Reme, Jean and Marie Chery, Robert Perello, and New Fellowship Baptist Church, which received two complaints for two signals.
Armed with a larger budget and the powers invested by the PIRATE Act, these nine warnings are the latest in the FCC’s expanded crusade against unlicensed operators. Under the PIRATE Act allows substantial fines on violators, with potential penalties reaching up to $2.31 million. This legislation also empowers the FCC to hold property owners accountable if they knowingly permit pirate radio operations.
Besides NYC, pirates have recently been tracked down everywhere from Miami to Alaska to a spaceport in the New Mexico desert.
Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal commented, “Property owners that continue to allow pirate radio operations on their properties can face serious consequences because these illegal operations can interfere with licensed broadcast signals and their ability to provide emergency alert system notifications. Thank you to the field agents in the Boston area who work to ensure compliance with federal law in this area.”
