San Francisco Liberation Radio appeared to have won Round One with the FCC on Friday, April 30, as Judge Susan Ilston was compelled to hold off issuing a ruling after hearing well-formulated arguments by SFLR’s lawyers. The verdict is in, though: lawyer Ben Rosenfeld has confirmed that Judge Ilston has chosen to rule against SFLR’s motion to dismiss the charges levied against them by the FCC. SFLR, which has a history of media activism, made their arguments on the grounds that the FCC violated their right to due process when they conducted an in rem raid on the station back in October. Rosenfeld stated that the judge had expressed an interest in the possible First Ammendment issues at stake in SFLR's case. The FCC appealed the federal court’s decision to deny their request of an injunction against Free Radio Berkeley founder Stephen Dunifer in 1995. Unfortunately, they eventually won out, even though Dunifer made an historic attempt to challenge the FCC on First Ammendment grounds. SFLR stands a much better chance of winning with this argument, due to the fact that it has applied for a license twice from the FCC, to no avail.
Stay tuned for more updates as they come in here at Indybay. In the meantime, some may have noticed that SFLR’s decade-long inhabited frequency of 93.7FM has been taken over by a new band of pirates. While some may be sad to see SFLR’s traditional frequency filled by someone else, Indybay spoke with the new radio buckaneers who said, "Well, it’s an empty frequency, and it has to be used. So we are." Check out the DIY pirates at West-Add Radio.

A mini-documentary with more information about SFLR and its struggle was screened on May 15 at the Women’s Building.