WEBVTT

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Hey, Before we get started,
be sure to head over to ham Radio

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two dot com forward slash email dash
sign up to join my email list of

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over nineteen thousand subscribers, where I
like to send emails about upcoming events,

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upcoming shopping deals, keep you updated
with all the stuff going on with my

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videos. Once that list reaches twenty
thousand, I will be doing a giveaway

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of another HF radio sign up today
and thank you for the support. Do

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you have to give up your Fourth
Amendment rights when you get a Ham radio

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license inside of the USA? What
does that mean? What does the Fourth

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Amendment say? And what do we
as ham radio operators have to give up

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by getting license? Let's talk about
it today. I think it's first important

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to define what the Fourth Amendment says. I did this First Amendment video about

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freedom of speech on the airwaves,
and you can check that video out.

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I'll put a link up here somewhere. But like that video, I think

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it's first important to define what of
the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution says.

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Once again, the first ten amendments
to the US Constitution are called the

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Bill of Rights. It was part
of the original Constitution, but it wasn't

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written at the same time as the
Declaration of Independence. But nevertheless, this

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is what the Fourth Amendment says.
The right of the people to be secure

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in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures

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shall not be violated, And no
warrants shall issue but upon probable cause,

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supported by oath or affirmation in other
words, by like a jury or judge

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or something like that, and particularly
describing the place to be searched and the

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persons or things to be seized,
particularly describing the place to be searched and

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what to be seized. So it's
important to understand what that says. That

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Frank often argues that he thinks TSA
searches violate the Fourth Amendment rights, and

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I think he has he has a
point to a certain degree. He has

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a point. But it's not the
same thing. Whether it is or isn't,

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it is kind of not the point. It's not the same thing as

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go as voluntarily buying a plane ticket, going to the airport and volunteering for

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a TSAs or being forced into a
TSA search. Although no one's forcing you

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to buy a plane ticket and fly
to wherever you're going. Maybe your job

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but still I don't know. That's
a gray area, okay, but it's

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not the same thing as someone coming
into your home. So this has been

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talked about a lot. The main
reason I'm doing this now is because I

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had someone come by the channel and
put up this comment on one of my

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videos. It wasn't even the First
Amendment video. Was on a totally different

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video, and this is what he
put up a comment saying. So,

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this person made what I thought was
a polite and respectful comment, and I

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tried not to be rude back to
him. I did not consider him to

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be a control. In fact,
his first sentence says, longtime subscriber to

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him radio two point zero. Okay. Down here on the second line,

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it says, just remember those with
him radio life instances give up their constitutional

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right to warrantless searches of their homes, unsure if the same goes for GMRS

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licensed individuals, and if that doesn't
extend to their entire family, as the

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license covers them all. Meanwhile,
non licensed people maintain their constitutional rights.

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It is a complex problem for some
that can be broken down into categories,

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such as the plane's two pit idiots, virtue signaling, squealers, angry,

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want to be cops, kids,
uninformed or ignorant types that probably many more.

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And my response to him, which
was stern and direct and to the

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point. But I didn't mean it
to be rude. Okay, it is

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a completely false idea that you give
up your Fourth Amendment rights after you get

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a HAM radio license. That lie
has perpetrated the Internet and it is just

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wrong. If you read the agreement
that you automatically adhere to for Free band

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Radio CBNFRS, it has the same
verbiage that HAM licensing does, so does

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GMRS. None of it makes you
give up any of your constitutional rights.

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End of story. And that's what
I wrote back to him, and he

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did reply, and he's like,
well, you seem pretty sure about that.

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He's like, maybe I'm wrong,
and he again, he was very

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respectful, don't I didn't mean it
to be an argument session. I responded

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back to his reply and that kind
of thing. So I was poking around,

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like, you know what, I
need to make a video on that.

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Other channels have made a video on
that in the past, but I've

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never made one, so I thought
i'd make one. Poking around here.

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I'm a member as you might know, Ham Radio Prep is one of my

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sponsors. Okay, so you can
always save a twenty percent discount on all

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of the courses at hemradoprep dot com
with the coupon code of Jason twenty.

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Hamrado Prep put up this article last
year in twenty twenty three, saying mythbusted.

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You do not forfeit your fourth right
Fourth Amendment rights when you get a

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Ham radio license. Okay, and
this is written by ham Radio Prep in

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January of twenty twenty three, is
still true today. I read through this

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and I very much agree with what
it says. This is not legal advice,

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but let's start with the facts as
as we know them. You do

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not forfeit your Fourth Amendment rights doing
reasonable search and seizure by getting Ham radio

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license. Holding an fc C license
does not allow federal or local law enforcement

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the right to end your home at
any time. Okay. It's very important.

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Okay, you have to understand what
the license actually says. And once

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again, it is part of the
technician license exam for Ham radio. It's

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one of the test questions. But
it's the same verbage that's on a CB

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radio and it's the same verbage that's
in that long document that you sign your

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name to when you just purchase a
GMRS license. FCC can come knock on

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your door any time they want to, even if it's for a bad transformer

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that might be on a telephone pole
in your backyard. Okay, if the

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electric company has put electric power lines
in your backyard and one of them is

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producing a bunch of RFI, they
can come knocking on your door and ask

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request to see the equipment that they
believe to be faulty. They can't barge

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in, they can't seize anything,
they can't violate your Fourth Amendment rights,

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but they can knock on your door
and request whether you have a radio or

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a license or not. You may
wonder what the difference is between an unreasonable

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search prohibited under the Fourth Mimdent and
what's considered reasonable. If the FCC is

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investigating interference complaints and your station is
searched, it's considered reasonable as the agency

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is attempting to resolve a complaint.
So someone's complained. At this point in

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time, Congress has legislated rules to
allow the FCC Enforcement Bureau agents to inspect

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radio equipment. So somebody has complained
at this point in time, and generally

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speaking, it's people in an hoa
or a neighbor they say, oh,

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that guy down the street, here's
a Ham radio antenna, and my microwave

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or my TV's not acting right.
It's probably that guy with the Ham radio

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license. I know a lot of
you have come us well, sad Hams

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have probably called the FCC. No, it's usually a neighbor that lives down

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the street from a Ham radio operator
that blames the Ham radio operator everything,

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because we all have big as antennas
in our backyard and usually it's the touch

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lamp in their own home causing the
interference. But leaving that aside for the

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moment, Congress has legislated rules to
allow FCC enforcement agents to inspect radio equipment.

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This can be at any time they
are working on interference issues if they

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believe specific equipment is involved. This
inspection rule applies across all radio services in

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addition to Ham's. This means broadcast
stations, cbgmors, and even public safety

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stations are subject to inspection if necessary. Here's the fourth Amendment already read you

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guys at fourth miment. This would
leave it open to legislation on what is

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a reasonable search? That's a statement
in any of question mark that's a terrible

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sentence, guys, Sorry, it
just is. As part of the rulemaking

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process, Congress has determined the FCC
station inspection of the reasonable search because of

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public safety issues at the FCC points
out on their inspection sheet, the FCC

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is inspecting the equipment, not your
house. This is important to allow because

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of the role that radio when broadcasting
plays in everyday lives. Perhaps the interference

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is keeping firefighters from responding to fire
calls. A stuck MIC is pre inventing

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your local ambulance service from knowing how
to get to a heart attack victim on

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off frequency device is blocking planes from
landing. In all these cases, it's

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prudent to have a group empowered to
resolve these issues. The federal government has

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made the FCC Enforcement Bureau the group
to deal with the safety issues. Inspections

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are one of their tools. Here's
how the FCC explains the process in their

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inspection sheet. Once you open the
door, the agents show their FCC identification

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card and badge, identify themselves by
name an agency, and should state the

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purpose of the visit. They should
request permission to inspect your radio station.

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The agents may also ask to see
records such as licenses for the station operator

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or station logs. A lot of
time station logs. Agents, however,

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should never This is from the FCC's
website or FCC's inspection fact sheet. Okay,

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Agents however, should never open private
cabinets, drawers, or other private

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items in the search for license documents. So what happens is if you say

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no when the FCC knocks are on
your door to inspect your equipment. It

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is a condition of your hand radio
license to allow the equipment inspections. Some

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hams have told the FCC agent's note
and separate consequences. They have been subject

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to severe fines and loss of their
hand radio license and even equipment for not

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allowing inspection. I posted a video
just a few weeks ago about a CB

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operator that was fined for also not
allowing inspection. Now, whether how strict

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these fines are and how much they're
enforced, I really don't know. Sometimes

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they find you and then nobody ever
pays it, and I don't know how

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all that works on the back end. The FCC keeps a history of enforcement

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actions on their website, including imateur
radio enforcement actions. They also publish a

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table called base Amounts for forfeitures,
which lists failure to permit inspection as a

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minimum fine of seven thousand dollars.
One of our instructors looked at the FCC

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enforcement actions and HAM radio finds over
the last ten years and find that in

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for BFR's Hamtechlibrary dot com blog.
So, okay, that might be may

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maybe I'll go into that on another
video recapping. Congress has said an FCC

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equipment inspection is a reasonable search.
If you don't comply, it could cost

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you at least seven thousand dollars and
your hand radio license impossibly equipment. That

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said, these are written by Congress, and Congress can change them. If

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you think it should be changed,
visit Congress dot gov and contact your local

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representative and state your case. So
I think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes

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these inspections are necessary. We live
in a free society for the most part.

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I'm talking about people in the USA
right now. We live in a

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free society. But my rights end
where yours begin, and your rights end

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where mine begin. And both of
our rights end where his or hers or

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theirs begin. So I can go
outside and swing my fist all day long,

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but as soon as I knock someone
else in the nose, I violated

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their rights. So when you're driving
down the road with a fifteen hundred watt

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powered CB, that's got a really
dirty signal because all those because cbs aren't

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made to be that powerful, and
amplifiers might be clean, but the CB

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itself might be dirty, and you're
blowing speakers out on TVs, on computer

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speakers. That's a common one back
in the day. Nobody has answering machines

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anymore, but back in the day
on my own CB, I used to

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get complaints that I would drive down
the road and I wouldn't be I would

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not be running an amplifier, but
I would not be running legally either.

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But I would get complaints from my
neighbors and my parents that I was coming

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over their answering machine. We used
to fool around with the drive through with

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McDonald's and Wendy's and Taco Bell when
we were in college, and we would

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we would get in the drive through
and we'd be behind or two or three

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cars back in the drive through,
and we would hear the person. We

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would hear the loud speaker inside the
McDonald's, and we'd key up our CBS,

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which might have had too much power. Maybe maybe they did. I

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don't remember right now, I don't
remember if they had too much power or

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not. We cay over our CVS
and hear osls over the speaker and intercom

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system inside the restaurant. The things
you do when your mom's not looking right.

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So, but these types of things, I mean, it's it's funny.

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I shouldn't have done that. Okay, I shouldn't have done that.

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But it's funny to a certain degree, Okay, but it's not funny when

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it interfer interferes with someone's home.
So once again, my rights to talk

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on the CB or talk on the
HAM radio end when it starts to interfering

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with you and some piece of equipment
in your area. If you live close

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to an airport, you sure as
heck don't want to interfere with the air

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traffic control guys or the AM broadcast
band or AM aircraft band. Okay,

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if you live near a radio station, you probably don't want to interfere with

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them too much because they've probably got
more money than you do and can come

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after you with some hefty lawyers and
whatnot. So I think it's good to

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have some sort of regulation in place. But I think it's very important to

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understand that havingham radio license does not
force you to forfeit any of your rights

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first, second, third, four, fifth, six, tenth, twelve,

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thirtieth, whatever amendment. It doesn't
force you to give up any rights.

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And if you use any radio service
inside the USA, you are still

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subject to those same sort of searches, request for searches, request for reasonable

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searches if you are actually causing interference, either by design, either on purpose,

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or if something's just faulty and you
don't know about it, and they're

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trying to track down a bad transformer
or transmitter somewhere in your property. That

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might be in your property, it
might be in your neighbor's property. They

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might knock on your door by mistake. Who knows that is what that is.

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I would like to know what you
guys think about that fact. I've

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done the First Amendment and I've done
the Fourth Amendment. If you want to

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see those videos, check out over
here the First Amendment video and the CBE

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radio operator who was fined for refusing
a search. Check out those videos over

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here and put a comment below,
because I'd really like to know what you

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think about this story and about these
statistics of Fourth Amendment rights inside of Ham

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Radio seventy three