About Those Frogs

     In a move that is more rock-throwing than frog-boiling, FCC head Brendan Carr has started an inquiry into KCBS in San Francisco, a radio station that had the audacity to -- gasp -- report on real-time events in public view as they were happening!

     Commissioner Carr says the station has been scent a letter of inquiry, "...a formal investigation[...], and they have just a matter of days left to respond to that inquiry and explain how this could possibly be consistent with their public-interest obligations."

     Indeed, the radio spectrum only has limited space for stations, which are charged with operating in the "public interest, convenience and necessity."  We've also got the First Amendment, the relevant sections of which read, "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press [...]."  The FCC has their own read on how those principles interact.

     The old Photography Is Not A Crime website was built around that fact that in the United States, it's not a crime to take pictures of anything in public view.  If you ever wondered why the government kept extending the fences and "No Trespassing" areas around Area 51, now you know.  And if you can photograph it, you can report on it.  Simple as that.*

     Then-candidate Donald Trump was very open about his plans for Federal forces to round up and deport illegal immigrants if he won the Presidency.  He did and they have begun, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)† doing most of the work.  So the Press knew well in advance and looked for activity.  When ICE acted in the San Francisco area, KCBS covered it, who-what-when-where-why, live as it happened.  "What" included ICE raids in East San José ("where"); "who" involved uniformed agents in unmarked vehicles.  It's not a secret: anyone could see what was going on.  Commissioner Carr is nevertheless unhappy.  (The Völkischer Beobachter, er, New York Post seems worried about "rootless cosmopolitan" involvement -- but having been there, I can tell you the distance between corporate shareholders and a field reporter is impossibly vast.  Not only do the shareholders not tell 'em what to do, they don't even know who they are.)

     Elsewhere, there's unhappiness all around in Denver, where ICE covered up a home-security camera while knocking on doors.  Border "Czar" Tom Homan wants an investigation -- not into the illegal interference with video recording, but into how local news reporters found about the raids that, this past October before he'd even got the job, he had promised were coming.  9News reporter Chris Vanderbeen has the skinny on that (BlueSky thread):
      "As a local news operation, it's routine for various people to tell us [...] when a boatload of federal agents are amassing in a parking lot [...]  A number of our crews went to these staging areas and then -- mostly this is because it's what journalists do -- they followed the teams when they went out on the raids. [...] Keep in mind, the ICE presence was OBVIOUS to anyone nearby too"
     His thread is accompanied by multiple pictures of uniformed ICE agents in marked vehicles.  A crew from the Fox News Network was embedded with at least one ICE crew in the area during the raids.  These were not covert operations.

     This isn't a new administration finding their way, unsure of the rules and customs; the principles of press freedom and "in public view" are very well established.  And, yes, there is always some tension between what the Press wants to drag into the light and what governments want to keep quiet.  That's normal.  In the United States, our Constitution and legal tradition favors truth and daylight over night and fog --  or Nacht und Nebel, if you'd prefer it in the original.
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* Interestingly enough, if you're in the military or working for Uncle Sam or a government contractor, there may be things in public view that you, personally, cannot talk about or share images of.  But that's a you and your employer issue.
 
† You'll recognize them in the field by their vests and jackets that say "POLICE ICE" in letters at least six inches tall.  They are indeed ICE, Federal Agents, but they're not, strictly speaking, police; it's there to keep other kinds of law enforcement from making embarrassing mistakes with firearms, etc.