In the wake of a New York state incident of malicious jamming of a fire department radio channel, a member of Congress is now proposing a bill that would criminalize such acts with severe penalties. Under current law, intentionally interfering with radio communications results in only a civil penalty, with fines up to $16,000 a day. U.S. Rep. Peter King (R) announced Monday that his legislation would make public safety radio interference a federal felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. King was motivated by an incident last year during which someone transmitted on the T-band radio channel for the Melville Fire Department. The transmissions included words and chanting, officials said. After 10 months, police made an arrest with the help of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). King has not formally introduced the legislation in Congress.
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Frankly, they should allow local police to enforce already existing laws (which is currently not the case). changing the penalties wouldn’t hurt (though jail time longer than 1 year seems excessive unless there was a death involved).
Well, thanks to Congressman King’s actions in connection with finding “funding” for the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network, there won’t be a Melville Fire Department on T-Band to worry about interference. Melville FD will have to try and find a vacant channel somewhere else because the “funding” source is supposed to be from the sale of public safety channels currently on T-Band – a ridiculous idea which has to be changed before it takes full effect.
I monitor the marine channel 16 for ship traffic entering the harbor and as soon as the weather warmed-up in Ohio, the CG started calling and telling people to get off the distress and emergency channel.
Happens all the time in the summer.
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