II 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 1228 

To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to provide for enhanced penalties 

for pirate radio, and for other purposes. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

APRIL 29, 2019 

Mr. DAINES (for himself and Mr. PETERS) introduced the following bill; which 

was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 

Transportation 

A BILL 

To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to provide for 

enhanced penalties for pirate radio, and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Preventing Illegal 

5 Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act’’ or the ‘‘PIRATE 

6 Act’’. 

7 SEC. 2. PIRATE RADIO ENFORCEMENT ENHANCEMENTS. 

8 Title V of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 

9 U.S.C. 501 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the 

10 following new section: 


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1 ‘‘SEC. 511. ENHANCED PENALTIES FOR PIRATE RADIO 

2 BROADCASTING; ENFORCEMENT SWEEPS; RE3 PORTING. 

4 ‘‘(a) INCREASED GENERAL PENALTY.—Any person 

5 who willfully and knowingly does or causes or suffers to 

6 be done any pirate radio broadcasting shall be subject to 

7 a fine of not more than $2,000,000. 

8 ‘‘(b) VIOLATION OF THIS ACT, RULES, OR REGULA9 TIONS.—Any person who willfully and knowingly violates 

10 this Act or any rule, regulation, restriction, or condition 

11 made or imposed by the Commission under authority of 

12 this Act, or any rule, regulation, restriction, or condition 

13 made or imposed by any international radio or wire com14 munications treaty or convention, or regulations annexed 

15 thereto, to which the United States is party, relating to 

16 pirate radio broadcasting shall, in addition to any other 

17 penalties provided by law, be subject to a fine of not more 

18 than $100,000 for each day during which such offense oc19 curs, in accordance with the limit described in subsection 

20 (a). 

21 ‘‘(c) ANNUAL REPORT.—Not later than 1 year after 

22 the date of enactment of the PIRATE Act, and annually 

23 thereafter, the Commission shall submit to the Committee 

24 on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives 

25 and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transpor26 tation of the Senate a report summarizing the implemenVerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Apr 30, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1228.IS S1228

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1 tation of this section and associated enforcement activities 

2 for the previous fiscal year, which may include the efforts 

3 by the Commission to enlist the cooperation of Federal, 

4 State, and local law enforcement personnel (including 

5 United States attorneys and the United States Marshals 

6 Service) for service of process, collection of fines or forfeit7 ures, seizures of equipment, and enforcement of orders. 

8 ‘‘(d) ENFORCEMENT SWEEPS.— 

9 ‘‘(1) ANNUAL SWEEPS.—Not less than once 

10 each year, the Commission shall assign appropriate 

11 enforcement personnel to focus specific and sus12 tained attention on the elimination of pirate radio 

13 broadcasting within the top 5 radio markets identi14 fied as prevalent for such broadcasts. Such effort 

15 shall include identifying, locating, and taking en16 forcement actions designed to terminate such oper17 ations. 

18 ‘‘(2) ADDITIONAL MONITORING.—Within 6 

19 months after conducting the enforcement sweeps re20 quired by paragraph (1), the Commission shall con21 duct monitoring sweeps to ascertain whether the pi22 rate radio broadcasting identified by enforcement 

23 sweeps is continuing to broadcast and whether addi24 tional pirate radio broadcasting is occurring. 


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1 ‘‘(3) NO EFFECT ON REMAINING ENFORCE2 MENT.—Notwithstanding paragraph (1), the Com3 mission shall not decrease or diminish the regular 

4 enforcement efforts targeted to pirate radio broad5 cast stations for other times of the year. 

6 ‘‘(e) STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTHOR7 ITY.—The Commission may not preempt any State or 

8 local law prohibiting pirate radio broadcasting. 

9 ‘‘(f) REVISION OF COMMISSION RULES REQUIRED.— 

10 The Commission shall revise its rules to require that, ab11 sent good cause, in any case alleging a violation of sub12 section (a) or (b), the Commission shall proceed directly 

13 to issue a notice of apparent liability without first issuing 

14 a notice of unlicensed operation. 

15 ‘‘(g) PIRATE RADIO BROADCASTING DATABASE.— 

16 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days 

17 after the date of the enactment of this section, and 

18 semi-annually thereafter, the Commission shall pub19 lish a database in a clear and legible format of all 

20 licensed radio stations operating in the AM and FM 

21 bands. The database shall be easily accessible from 

22 the Commission home page through a direct link. 

23 The database shall include the following information: 


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1 ‘‘(A) Each licensed station, listed by the 

2 assigned frequency, channel number, or Com3 mission call letters. 

4 ‘‘(B) All entities that have received a no5 tice of unlicensed operation, notice of apparent 

6 liability, or forfeiture order issued by the Com7 mission. 

8 ‘‘(2) CLEAR IDENTIFICATION.—The Commis9 sion shall clearly identify in the database— 

10 ‘‘(A) each licensed station as a station li11 censed by the Commission; and 

12 ‘‘(B) each entity described in paragraph 

13 (1)(B) as operating without a Commission li14 cense or authorization. 

15 ‘‘(h) DEFINITION OF PIRATE RADIO BROAD16 CASTING.—In this section, the term ‘pirate radio broad17 casting’ means the transmission of communications on 

18 spectrum frequencies between 535 and 1705 kilohertz, in19 clusive, or 87.7 and 108 megahertz, inclusive, without a 

20 license issued by the Commission, but does not include un21 licensed operations in compliance with part 15 of title 47, 

22 Code of Federal Regulations.’’. 

Æ 


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