To help fight pirate radio, the Federal Communications Commission hired four full-time people in fiscal 2023 and is in the process of hiring more.
That’s according to the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s annual report to Congress about its enforcement efforts to fight illegal radio.
The FCC has also ordered six vehicles to support the hires with mobile direction-finding equipment. “These six vehicles will be outfitted in the 2024 and 2025 calendar years … and will include specialized hardware and software for the detection for pirate radio operators,” it wrote.
“We also purchased additional equipment that will help us identify and locate pirate radio operators.”
The FCC must submit the report under the Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement (PIRATE) Act, which became law in 2020.
The act increased the maximum monetary penalties for pirate operators; those caps now are $119,000 per day and $2.4 million total.
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