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A comment on FCC fines Swarm $900K for unauthorized satellite launch. Parent comment

Re:FCC fines Swarm $900K for unauthorized satellite launch by yholio on Friday December 21, 2018 @02:39PM (#18735916)
This is not even a law, it's a regulation from an agency that tries to assert itself as a regulator of communication satellites. This has strategic implications for US and it's probably a good idea anyway from a space collision point of view - but nonetheless is a regulatory land grab from other international bodies.

As a general rule, these type of moves can only be controlled by breaking them and testing then in court. The agencies have a strong incentive to go for a maximal interpretation of the relevant statues and increase their influence and funding.

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Re:FCC fines Swarm $900K for unauthorized satellite launch by threeseed on Friday December 21, 2018 @04:16PM (#18736719)
Governments have a mandate to regulate what happens in their own country. It’s how the entire world functions. And so it makes no sense that enforcement should be considered a land grab from other international bodies.

And we don’t control crimes like murder by allowing people to break the laws and then testing them in court.

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Re:FCC fines Swarm $900K for unauthorized satellite launch by yholio on Saturday December 22, 2018 @02:10PM (#18741981)
> And we don’t control crimes like murder by allowing people to break the laws and then testing them in court.

I usually err on the side of constructive conversation, but I have to say that is a ridiculous straw-man - and you know it.

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Re:FCC fines Swarm $900K for unauthorized satellite launch by Taniwha on Friday December 21, 2018 @07:08PM (#18737909)
Regulations are laws where the details were left to the bureaucrats by the politicians who drafted the laws - it allows for implementation flexibility.

But they are still backed by actual laws, and are not lessened by being regulations - if anything they are better because you can always apply to the implementing authority to change things without going the whole parliamentary route.

There's a downside in less well developed countries without a tradition of a non-political civil service (like the US) where an incoming politician installs their political flunkies can change the regulations to suit their donors

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