Bureaucracy shuts self-help radio station in Houston

Local bureaucrats in Harris County have pulled the plug on a temporary radio station in Houston that had the support of the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC granted a temporary licence to KAMP to broadcast Hurricane Katrina relief information on 95.3 FM for the benefit of evacuees from New Orleans currently in the Houston Astrodome. The Houston Mayor's office and Texas governor Rick Perry supported the initiative.

But local officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have refused permission for the station to operate, citing "security concerns." Gloria Roemer, a spokesperson for Harris County, which has jurisdiction over the Astrodome complex, said that "They wanted unlimited access to the buildings, which we could not give to anyone in the media."

Roemer said FEMA officials also believed they could not allocate "scarce" electricity, office space, and phone and Internet access to the volunteer station even though activists say they offered to run the station on batteries and use their own cellphones.

Supporters of KAMP claim that the bureaucrats were seeking to 'manage the news.' Elsewhere, the FCC has issued some 20 temporary licenses for a low-power emergency relief stations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, including a volunteer-run station in Louisiana.

(Source: The Village Voice)

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