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SEQUENCE:18372019
CREATED:20070211T221300Z
DESCRIPTION:A photo ID will be reqired to enter the 
 courtroom-auditorium.\nhttp://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/\n\nFinally, after three 
 years of waiting, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral 
 argument from lawyers representing long time media activist San Francisco 
 Liberation Radio.\n\nSFLR 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.\n\nThe 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 SFLR's case, the station's 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 
 affect how the rights of others challenging FCC regulations are observed 
 (or not) in the future.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/11/18361314.php
SUMMARY:SFLR argues before Ninth Circuit
LOCATION: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. / http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/DE67.html ) 
  
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/11/18361314.php
DTSTART:20070214T173000Z
DTEND:20070214T203000Z
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