Pirate (Gang) Radio

On Saturday night, the Orange County (Florida) Sheriff's department raided a pirate radio station called "Street Heat". Apparently it was an illegal, vulgar gang-promoting radio station. This is an intriguing story; i'm hoping that a little audio will eventually emerge from the station itself so we can get a little perspective on this.

It does raise some interesting issues about what media is for and what limits are placed on it for the public good.

According to the police: "There are no sentences in this stuff that they're putting out that didn't have vulgar language, didn't have some demeaning language towards women, towards people," said Sgt. Mike Gibson.

Gibson said the radio show covered "where to buy drugs, where to buy prostitutes and what gang to be a member of."

...

"They're promoting violence," Gibson said. "When you promote violence, the robberies go up, the homicides go up, people become victims of crimes."