Because we now get what we now pay for? I dunno - I mean if it actually got some attention and action if warranted...
Totally different thing. The first amendment covers the right "to petition the government for redress of grievances." In other words, to petition the government to change things about the government. It doesn't cover a request for regulatory investigation and, if warranted, action. It covers things like writing your Congress-critter, or sending a petition to them or to Executive branch.
"Time's up. I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to go on listening to any more complaining. If you want me to go on complaining, you'll have to pay for another five minutes."
A distinction with little difference. We already pay a fee of sort to fund all branches of government in taxes, a substantial portion of which funds health insurance and other entitlements for which many of us serves other people. That we or anyone should not have to pay when benefiting by government use is a ship which sailed loooooooong ago.
Well, the precedent is already set. Would this be such a bad thing? Simply put: I don’t want to have to pay a fee to trigger enforcement. But if it actually meant that the enforcement process would happen, then I’d be willing to pay. I don’t know how many or what type of amateur radio complaints the FCC gets. But I have, on occasion, viewed the comment submissions related to NPRMs, and many are ridiculous. Now, I’m the case of comments, the good news is that (as another poster mentioned) individual replies by the FCC aren’t necessary; they can simply aggregate the responses and tally the sentiments. With complaints, they require individual responses or actions. That takes time. Has anyone found the actual FCC NPRM (or other format) related to this proposal? I can only find the news articles. I’d like to see what (if anything) the FCC provides as justification. The government is full of “unfunded mandates” and this is just one of many means to address such.
The proposal has been dropped. You can read into the posturing as you’d like, ie which side of the aisle was doing what...but the bottom line is that this was unpopular. So now the shot is across the bow and the FCC can ask for an increase in funding, reallocate resources away from other activities, or pull other levers to address this.
