It seems that the decade long legal saga over K1MAN nears its end.

As you may recall, K1MAN was fined $21,000 by the FCC for various rules vio
lations including broadcasting, causing interference and others way back in
June of 2005. We've gone though numerous legal arguments and multiple cour
ts and judges but only one issue remains to be legally settled. Does K1MAN
have the qualifications to be a ham radio operator?

Last year the fine was reduced to $15,000 when Glen Baxter was sued by the
government to recover the fine. FCC's prime witness to $7,000 of violations
had apparently died. No actual trial ever happened. The government was gra
nted summary judgment on $10,000 worth of the fines. They then moved to wa
ve the remaining amount as not worth trying to recover. Baxter appealed th
e judgment, but it was upheld by the court of appeals early this year. Ther
e was no further appeal. This leaves Baxter $10,000 in debt to the FCC.

During the legal battle over the fine, Baxter's license expired. Having fil
ed a timely renewal, his application was "set aside" for enforcement action
due to the repeated rules violations. In accordance to the rules his licen
se remained active and K1MAN remained on the air while his renewal was pend
ing. An administrative hearing was requested and one was initially schedule
d. Due to the aforementioned legal battle over the fines the hearing was po
stponed until a final judgment was reached. We now have our final judgemen
t that found Baxter liable for $10,000 in fines. Now the process to determi
ne if K1MAN's license will be renewed can start once more.

The process has started in earnest. The judge conducting the hearing seems
to be driving this case towards a conclusion as fast as he can. He has ord
ered both sides to report and made it clear he wants this issue to be resol
ved. Baxter has apparently not been filing paper work properly or making so
und legal arguments. The judge has reprimanded him at least once because of
his lack of legal basis for his arguments and in the current filings from
the FCC, they mention that they are getting E-mail from Baxter but there ar
e no documents being formally filed with the FCC as required.

It doesn't seem to this writer that we are very far from the end of the pri
vileges for K1MAN. In it's latest filing, the FCC Enforcement Bureau has in
dicated that the FCC is intending to invoke the "red light rule" and out ri
ght deny K1MAN's renewal. Denying the renewal would revoke the license priv
ileges right away. Due to vacation schedules, the legal team at the FCC is
apparently planning to file the necessary paperwork sometime next month. Co
uld it be that by the end of August the license will finally be revoked?

Where do we go from here? Assuming they invoke the "Red Light Rule" and th
en deny the pending renewal application, K1MAN will no longer have his lice
nse. The FCC will likely still be owed the $10,000 in fines. The set aside
and hearing may still take place, although given Baxter's non responses to
government discovery questions he may just get another summary judgement. A
hearing would be a circus, but the resulting judgment could only be to den
y the application. K1MAN will loose his license, one way or the other.

At that point, I think the real fun begins. One can only guess if Baxter wi
ll concede the point, turn off his transmitter and move on, or keep up appe
arances and go pirate in plain sight. What would the FCC do then? Go aroun
d the NAL bush one more time? How many more decades would that take?

All I know is that this is taking WAY too long. I want those parts of the
HF spectrum he seems to frequent back for everybody to use.

On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 15:01:00 EDT, KC4UAI wrote:

At that point, I think the real fun begins. One can only guess if Baxter wi
ll concede the point, turn off his transmitter and move on, or keep up appe
arances and go pirate in plain sight. What would the FCC do then? Go aroun
d the NAL bush one more time? How many more decades would that take?

My educated opinion - if he remains on the air the FCC will have all
it needs to go to the US Justice Department for seizure and arrest
warrants on violation of Section 301 of the Communications Act. It's
been done before. Maybe it could be a Homeland Security thing! G

That should have been done at the beginning but the then-current
management was too afraid of the political controversy and managerial
oversight that didn't want the agency to use police tactics in a case
like that. I'm not sure if that has changed all that much.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

On Monday, July 29, 2013 6:56:25 PM UTC-5, Phil Kane wrote:

My educated opinion - if he remains on the air the FCC will have all
it needs to go to the US Justice Department for seizure and arrest
warrants on violation of Section 301 of the Communications Act. It's
been done before. Maybe it could be a Homeland Security thing! G

As it stands, we are waiting for the ALJ to simply "stay" the hearing on Ba
xter's renewal. If the ALJ agrees to do that, the renewal will then be subj
ect to the "red light" rule and rejected because Baxter owes the FCC the co
urt ordered $10,000. When the renewal is denied, Baxter's authority to oper
ate will immediately expire.

I have no clue if there is any precedent for the ALJ to grant the stay requ
ested by the enforcement lawyers, or if he even has the authority to stay a
hearing like that. It's been a couple of months since the request was mad
e but I've seen nothing about this posted yet. Does anybody know how to loo
k at the ALJ's schedule?

-= bob =-
AKA
KC4UAI