Hey Folks!!

Finally after three years of waiting SFLR will have it's day in the
Ninth Circuit. This is where we could actually make some change!
Everyone who can should come on down to see the deftness of our
fantastic legal team! We will have stickers available to show your
support.

SFLR vs. FCC: Head to head, oral arguments!
February 14, 2007, 9:30 AM, Booth Auditorium at UC Berkeley School of
Law (Boalt Hall, located on Bancroft Way at College Ave. /
www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/DE67.html )

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument from lawyers
representing long time media activist San Francisco Liberation Radio.

SFLR was raided in October, 2003 when federal marshals, SFPD and FCC
agents stormed into the home where the station was located, with guns
drawn, and seized SFLR’s broadcasting equipment in order to prevent
SFLR from broadcasting. SFLR will argue (through its counsel, Mark
Vermeulen, and other pro bono lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild)
that the federal government violated the station’s and its
listeners’
First Amendment rights when it obtained the warrant for the raid and
the seizure of the equipment through a back-door, ex parte procedure.
In civil seizure cases (as opposed to criminal cases), fair notice and
a hearing before a judge typically must take place before any raid can
go forward. This is especially true where First Amendment free speech
rights are involved. However, here, the US Government here utilized a
maritime law to conduct the raid without giving advance notice to the
station, arguing that a radio station is like a ship that may sail away
in the night.

The station, with a volunteer staff of nearly 60 people, was located in
a house firmly rooted upon land and posed no danger of trying to
“escape,” nor was it interfering with any other station’s
broadcasts.
It had been broadcasting at 100 watts in San Francisco for 11 years and
had been in consistent contact with the FCC regarding licensing
matters. The Court will decide whether the government has the right to
obtain from the District Court an ex parte order to raid a radio
station, and seize the equipment even where as in our case, our lawyer
had explicitly requested notice if such action was contemplated.

This hearing is the next step in three years of legal proceedings in
this case, and may well effect how the rights of others challenging FCC
regulations are observed (or not) in the future.