Decius wrote:
1. Its not legal to retransmit this broadcast without paying for it. However, it is extremely unlikely that any U.S. organization would enforce those laws on behalf of a designated terrorist organization. They should have stolen the broadcast. Of course, this could have openned them up to extra-legal fee collection from local Hezbollah supporters.

The nature of the broadcast is not mentioned in this article. They do not mention if the transmission medium was by cable, or over-the-air broadcast. They do not mention if this broadcaster is licensed or tariffed for broadcasting in this manner. If the broadcaster is not FCC licensed and is broadcasting on a TV channel without a license, they are liable to the FCC. The FCC does not authorize low power transmitters in the TV channels or even consider applications under 100W of radiated power.

Furthermore, the FCC would force them to comply with the same standards of broadcasting that current broadcasters deal with, which would be interesting because of both the freedom of speech angle and the chilling effects squelching a broadcast which to everyone else would simply appear to be a broadcast in Arabic. In the world of broadcast, there are some extremely interesting laws that have been abused in the past and provide fodder for the lawyers almost every time. If you, as a broadcaster, have a contract with a tower owner and decide one day that you wish to terminate the contract, the tower owner cannot have you removed as long as your transmitter is in operation because it is against the law to interfere with a public broadcaster.

3. The FBI is likely most interested in his subscriber lists.

I'm sure they'll take a page from DirecTV for the prosecution.

RE: The Raw Story | FBI: Brooklyn HDTV company provided users with 'Hezbollah TV'