...Despite assurances that the Commission’s dedication
to enhanced enforcement in the Amateur Service remains
strong even after the retirement this past July of Riley
Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, as Special Counsel in charge of
amateur enforcement, no successor has yet been named
and not a single amateur enforcement action has been
announced since “Sheriff” Riley packed up his office. This
is deeply disturbing and of grave concern...For
15 years from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, the FCC
basically told hams to “regulate yourselves” and the bands
got progressively worse places to be, mostly due to the
actions of a very few who continually got away with bad
on-air behavior. When “the new sheriff came to town”
about ten years ago, we were promised that the overall
attitude of the Commission on enforcement had changed,
and that we would never again be left on our own to sort
out problems whose solutions really required the authority
of the federal government behind them. Indeed, over
the past decade, with strong support from the amateur
community, “Sheriff” Riley successfully cleaned up our
bands. We are grateful for his work, but now worry it may
all have been for naught. The ham bands are a much nicer
neighborhood now than they were ten years ago, mostly
because the biggest bullies on the block have been silenced.
But they’ll stay silent only if they know they’ll be accountable
for their actions to more than the local Official
Observer... self-enforcement is effective only
for the 98% or so of us who need only broad guidance
and/or peer pressure to follow the rules. It’s the other 2%,
though, who can make life in the neighborhood difficult.
And it is for them that we continue to need the FCC’s help.
It would be a tragedy, and a travesty, if the FCC were to
go back on its promise to be there for us and allowed amateur
enforcement to once again drop off the radar. We call
on Enforcement Bureau Chief Kris Monteith to name a
successor to Riley Hollingsworth, to do so promptly, and
to put the FCC back in the business of enforcing Amateur
Service rules...
http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/Zero%20Bias%20Dec08.pdf
