FCC Ordered Them to Pay Millions | AT&T and Verizon Said No

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]The FCC has fined Verizon and AT&T of more than $100 million for breaking the rules, not the law, but breaking the rules. And it went before a court. And the court seemed to kind of side with AT&T and Verizon over it. And they say that maybe the FCC doesn't have the right to find people or at least they seem skeptical of it. Let's take a look.

[00:00:28]Ham Radio 2.0. We do reviews, news, and how-tos of things new in amateur radio.

[00:00:32]But also in wireless communications, been doing a lot more, branching out more recently, more wireless communications. We got some Wi-Fi Halo stuff going on. We got some Meshtastic and Meshcore videos that working on.

[00:00:43]This story was sent to me by one of you guys, and it doesn't directly relate to radio, not the radio like you and I think about it, but it does relate to wireless technology, AT&T, and Verizon.

[00:00:56]This is from the Scotas blog, Supreme Court of the United States blog, scotasblog.com, not a government site. Court appears skeptical of right to jury trial in FCC proceedings. The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a challenge by telecommunications carriers AT&T and Verizon to the constitutionality of fines that the Federal Communications Commission imposed against them for violations of federal communications laws. AT&T and Verizon contend that the imposition of the penalties, which total more than $100 million, violated their Second Amendment right to a jury trial. During nearly 80 minutes of argument, some justices were sympathetic to the company's plight. But they also appeared receptive to the FCC's argument that the orders notifying the company's penalties are not binding until the Department of Justice brings a lawsuit to enforce them, at which point a jury trial is available. Now, this has been a topic of conversation on this channel about fines imposed on CB operators for operating illegally, GMRS operators for linking repeaters, which they're not supposed to do, ham radio operators for transmitting out of ban, ham radio operators for um transmitting one-way communications, CB operators for transmitting one-way communications, broadcasting as it were.

[00:02:09]The FCC can knock on your door. They can direction find to find you. If you are operating out of band or operating too much power or just being a jackass on the air, they can use direction find you to find you. They can knock on your door. They can request to see your equipment. You can refuse and then they can fine you. And the question for this article today, the question of topic today is just because they find you is that well first of all is that legal that they find you? If you don't pay it, what happens? And that's the question is like okay well they may find you and you may just ignore it. the strongly worded.

[00:02:39]There was a joke on a Reddit article a while back about uh people receiving a strongly worded letter that is never followed up upon or never enforced. And that's pretty accurate for what the FCC does. So, this article is saying that they tried to impose these fines and I don't know why yet. I haven't read down that far. They tried to impose these fines on AT&T and Verizon and $100 million that's kind of hefty. And AT&T and Verizon says you can't find us without taking a without proving that we're in the wrong by taking us to trial by jury, which is constitutionally correct. You know, due process, right to face your accuser and right to a a jury trial. That's good. So, the FCC might be overstepping their bounds here. Two years ago, the court ruled in SEC versus Jerkasy that the Securities and Exchange Commission imposition of fines and its administrative procedures as penalty for securities fraud violated the seventh amendment which guarantees a right to a jury trial in suits at common law. That is lawsuits seeking legal remedies such as money rather than a remedy known as equitable relief that orders a defendant to do something or stop doing something in which there's $20 or more at stake.

[00:03:40]The dispute before the court on Tuesday, FCC versus AT&T, stems from a pair of in-house proceedings in which the agency concluded that AT&T Verizon had violated the provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that requires telecommunications carriers to protect confidential customer data. Here, information about the customer's locations. So, I read that as AT&T and Verizon were sharing customer data, customer locations, and the FCC is trying to find them for it. AT&T and Verizon received notices from the FCC advising that the agency believed that they had violated law and assessing penalties of $57 million for AT&T and 46.9 million for Verizon. They had the chance to file written responses to the notices, but they did not have a hearing or trial before the agency issued an order known as a forfeite order directing them to pay the penalties within 30 days. Yeah. So, they received a strongly worded letter. Under the Communications Act, when a carrier receives a forfeite order, it has two choices. First, it can pay the fine and then seek to review the federal appeals court, which will apply to a fairly differential standard. Second, it can refuse to pay the fine. And if it does so, the Department of Justice has 5 years in which to file a lawsuit in the federal district court to enforce the order or collect the fine. In such a proceeding, the carrier would be entitled to a jury trial. So, apparently, they are refusing to pay this fine, and they're wanting a jury trial. Good for them. Now, if they are sharing customer information, violating their customers right to privacy, then that's a thing that someone needs to step in on that. If they if if if this is true, I'm saying if this is true because I don't know, it kind of depends on which article you read. If they're sharing locations and violating and sharing privacy, going against the privacy act and sharing customer locations and whatnot and selling that to the highest bidder or whatever, then that's an issue in and of itself. and the FCC is probably in the right in order in trying to stop them. However, I do agree with the fact that the FCC doesn't quite have the right to just impose a penalty without some sort of jury trial, especially for this dollar amount. You know, if it was like a couple hundred bucks, okay, if it was like $5,000, okay, $46.9 million and $57 million to AT&T, wow, that's kind of a hefty fine. You know, something like that would be like, yeah, you need to kind of prove that they're doing what you say they're doing cuz everyone's innocent until proven guilty. So, you need to prove that they're doing what you say they're doing with hard evidence and take them to trial by jury and hopefully the court will order them to pay if it's found out that they are actually doing what the FCC says they're doing. Now, again, this doesn't really have much to do with ham radio or GMRS radio directly, but this is all about FCC finding individuals for going against FCC rule. Part 95 rule for GMRS license holders, part 95 rule for CB and F FRS license uh freeband users, and part 97 for ham radio users, there are rules that are laid out there of what you can and can't do. But whichever service you're using, whatever you're using, if you are setting up a radio in your mobile station, your vehicle, or at home, I recommend checking out Mezy and Ply Coax. Always feed your radios with Mezzi and Pony Coax. You can save a 10% discount at the link in the description below with the coupon code of HR2 cables. Mezium is made in Italy, imported into the USA by Gigaparts and several other companies as well. And it's some of the best coax to feed your radio station. So, if you're going to get on the air and you want your signal to be clean and loud, feed it with mezzy and pony coax and uh tell them that ham radio 2.0 sent you. Both companies opted to go to federal court where they argued that the imposing fine in an in-house proceeding violated their seventh amendment right to a jury trial. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with the AT&T and threw out the fine. Judge Steuart Kyle Duncan wrote that in this process, which is completely in-house, the commission acted as prosecutor, jury, and judge.

[00:07:25]Okay. The US courts of appeals for the second circuit upheld the fine, assessed against Verizon. So, the fifth circuit is where AT&T got their case thrown out, and the second circuit is where Verizon's case was upheld by the court.

[00:07:37]Writing for the court, Judge Allison Nathan said that nothing about the commission's proceedings transgressed the seventh amendment's jury trial guarantee. I think jury trials than right to the jury and the 10 first 10 amendments known as the bill of rights to the constitution more apply to individuals than they do to corporations. I'm not going to get into that really deep and I'm not an attorney. This is my interpretation.

[00:07:58]Maybe I'm wrong, okay? But my interpretation about the Bill of Rights is that it applies to individual US citizens. it doesn't necessarily apply to corporations. So, I wonder what the legality of that might be. Representing the carriers, Jeffrey Wall emphasized that the FCC had imposed more than $100 million in civil penalties on the carriers without giving them any way to obtain a jury trial. That he said is a straightforward violation of the seventh amendment. Maybe, maybe not. Okay.

[00:08:24]Although the government characterizes the forfeite orders as merely an invitation to pay, hey, I invite you to give me $100 million. In fact, you know what? I'm going to invite you guys right now. Please click on the support button below and or the super chat in the premiere and uh donate $100 million to this channel. You know where I could go with that? I could go all I invite you.

[00:08:45]I invite you to pay me $100 million.

[00:08:48]Actually, I invite you to pay me five bucks. Pay me five bucks be plenty.

[00:08:53]Invite to pay. Invitation to pay. He said that the language in the federal statute allowing the government to assess and impose penalties is not voluntary language. Indeed, he noted the government itself treats the orders as binding, requiring the recipients to pay the penalties penalties by a particular date. Wall also contended that the forfeite orders violated a principle known as unconstitutional conditions doctrine. The idea that the government cannot use coercion to get people to give up their constitutional rights.

[00:09:21]Absolutely agree with that. Here he said the government uses the forfeiture orders since they know that legitimate parties pay 100% of the time because they do not want to wait to see whether the government ultimately brings an enforcement action due to the negative implications of having an outstanding unpaid penalty. It's hard to imagine a clearer case of penalizing the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights.

[00:09:41]Walt concluded. Okay. And this article goes on to say a little bit more. It ends with a decision in the case is expected by late June or early July of this year which is 2026. So, a lot of you in the comments often say that the FCC's fines for wrongdoings or for penalties. People don't pay them and there's no follow-up. There's no recourse. There's no penalty. There's nothing that's going to happen to you even if you get a letter on your door, knock on your door, letter in the mail, whatever. And according to this, you might be right because they're calling it an invitation to pay. And I've heard other comments in other of my videos saying that the FCC has to take them to the Justice Department. Department of Justice is the only one who actually can take you to court or find you. Again, I'm not an attorney. I'm not saying which one's right or wrong. I'm saying I've heard this argument before and it seems to track with what's being said on this blog here. So, what do you guys think? Have you seen similar stories like this? Are you aware of push back against FCC fines? A lot of the times I read these I get these articles about CB operators, GMRS, and ham radio operators getting a fine for doing something and then the story just kind of falls flat.

[00:10:44]We never hear a follow-up to it. So, at least we're getting a follow-up. this at least we're get hey FCC fined them they pushed back they got involved supreme court took him to court and said this is a violation of the seven seventh amendment whether it is or that was their argument and now proceedings are going further and one of them is going farther one of them got the case thrown out so at least this is something that's happening for push back to the FCC so I'd like to know what you guys think in the comments below share any more stories you have like this with me 73 guys if you like this video check out these over here YouTube thinks you want to watch those next and And we will catch you next time.