#title Radio Crazies Plague Police #author Fifth Estate Collective #SORTauthors Fifth Estate Collective; #date 1969 #source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/83-july-10-23-1969/radio-crazies-plague-police]] #lang en #pubdate 2019-04-21 #notes Fifth Estate #83, July 10–23, 1969 One of the more astonishing and bizarre developments in the ever-increasing confrontations between revolutionary and establishment elements in our society was leaked to this paper. A member of the Federal Communications Commission sympathetic to the struggle of today’s youth against their senile oppressors, revealed the incredible and even hilarious details of a hitherto suppressed report circulated in only the highest, innermost governmental circles. Our informant who requested anonymity for fear of losing his job supplied us with the details in circumstances that can best be described as “cloak and dagger.” It seems that a group of amateur ham radio operators have banded together and organized sporadic and unpredictable attacks on the police airwaves in a series of audio assaults designed to demoralize any pig who is on duty and listening. Rather than interfere with legitimate functions of the police department, the “Radio Crazies” as they have dubbed themselves, center their psychological assaults around the broadcasting of freak-out rock, incomprehensible mutterings and shriekings, coupled with the repetition of the word “oink” for indefinite periods of time. None of the attacks last more than a few minutes and to further confuse the FCC’s triangulation devices, the same broadcast, through means not yet determined by the government, comes from several moving sources simultaneously. The attacks began a few months ago in New York, but have been increasing in frequency and have spread to other megalopolitan areas. Recent reports indicate similar disruptions occurring in Los Angeles and Chicago, although they are apparently not as well organized as the New York Broadcasts. The effect on police morale has been described as “devastating,” more so since the government agency has not been able to turn up a single clue as to the identity of these so named “polluters of the airwaves” as they were described in a recent secret Senate subcommittee meeting. The government’s reluctance to bring the ‘report to the public is prompted by a fear that it will become so widespread as to paralyze the ability of the various police departments to function over the airwaves. Indeed such anxiety has been created amongst high level police and governmental -officials that one of the nation’s leading electronics firms has been requested to create a low cost receiving and sending scrambling unit that will function adjacent to the various computer systems currently being brought to use by law enforcement agencies. The idea is that by scrambling the messages and fluctuating them at a rapid speed up and down the broadcast spectrum assigned to law enforcement agencies and keying them to the various units in the possession of patrolmen, they will frustrate and eliminate any plans to disrupt their ability to function. The greatest stumbling block at the moment is the weight and size of the receiving-sending units makes it impossible to install in mobile and foot units of the police department. Our informant cautioned us however, against undue optimism as various technological breakthroughs are expected shortly which will make the “scrambling” units standard gear in the police arsenal. In the meantime the “Radio Crazies” continue their well-organized attacks driving the pigs up the wall while the law and order elements sit comfortably in their suburban easy chairs slurping down their beers totally oblivious to the changes going down about them.