damage important pieces of the existing infrastructure -- at least those parts
that we want to keep. But this complaint about air traffic was just silly.
There is more interference caused by a hair dryer than by an Apple AirPort
modem. And the notion that airport authorities should be able to stop
progress to protect their telephone revenue is absurd.[12-17]

What's needed in contexts like this is a balanced way to evaluate these
claims of interference to resolve whether they are real or just pretext. More
generally, what's needed is a commitment to progress in the use of spectrum
resources.

Instead the politicians have done just the opposite. Claims of technical
interference are not credibly evaluated. Indeed, the FCC has placed the
burden on new technologies not to harm existing use at all.[12-18] As Hazlett
puts it, the "system is booby-trapped against new rivals, an irresistible 'at-
tractive nuisance' to anticompetitive constituencies."[12-19] Thus, for example,
amateur radio operators are allowed to veto new spectrum uses if they inter-
fere _at_all_ with existing ham operations. And this pork is not just because of
a special favor to amateur operators. Any new use that interferes with any
old use must step aside.[12-20]

These restrictions on the use of amateur radio spectrum are particularly
ironic. The Amateur Radio Service (ARS) defines a range of spectrum that
is allocated to amateurs, but the members of the service "share" the spec-
trum in a commons mode. Any amateur can use any portion of that spec-
trum at any time and with just about any modulation technique now
known. Within the prime "beachfront" spectrum property (from 30 mega-
hertz to 3 gigahertz) there is a great deal allocated to the ARS. But armed
with the FCC's veto rule, amateurs are effectively able to veto new and dif-
ferent users of "their" spectrum -- despite the obligation imposed by the
FCC's regulation to enhance "the value... to the public as a voluntary
noncommercial communication service."[12-21]

These are technical rules that protect the old from the new. So too are
there political rules that achieve the same end. Among these, none is more
significant than the commitment and eagerness of the government to sell
rights to spectrum, in the way spectrum rights are sold now.[12-22] This form of
auction essentially entrenches the use of spectrum for particular businesses.
The license "does not yield the right to deploy spectrum in alternative
uses."[12-23] It entrenches a way of speaking of spectrum that is resistant to mod-
ern sharing technologies: that the spectrum is "my property." Once that
property is established, it will be harder to deploy technologies that "share"
other people's "property." (This despite the fact that an applicant for an

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