Fed police arrest, imprison Washington state radio "microcaster"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001461096_patriot10m.html

[...]

In February 2001 - before the Patriot Act was ever imagined - Alan was
approached in downtown Oroville by two men who knocked on the window of
his truck, asking him to roll it down. Fearing the men were carjackers,
Alan hit the gas. Big mistake: The men were federal agents, in town to
serve Alan with contempt-of-court papers.

His crime: Running a nonlicensed radio station from an apple-picking shack
on a hillside above Oroville, pop. 1,600. With a sister transmitter down
the valley in Tonasket, Alan's faint, 5-watt FM signal reached only around
the two towns, carrying news, high-school sports, advertising - and
provocative, right-leaning political commentary pulled by satellite dish
from "patriotic" national broadcasting networks.

Alan insisted his North Valley Broadcasting "microcast" station didn't
need a federal license because it didn't interfere with other station
signals and didn't broadcast over state lines. The Federal Communications
Commission - pressured, Alan says, by a radio competitor in Omak
- disagreed.

Moments after fleeing the undercover feds that day in Oroville, Alan, a
former reserve police officer with nary a parking ticket on his record,
was chased down and arrested at gunpoint. The father of six was tossed
into the Spokane County Jail, where he sat for nearly two months, becoming
something of a cause clbre in his community.

After a series of legal maneuvers, and a dispute over the legal name under
which he could be charged (he goes by Mark Alan, his "baptized" name, but
the feds insist he is Mark Alan Rabenold, his "family" name), he pleaded
to a minor offense and agreed to unplug Radio Free Oroville.

[...]