[tripletao]

I am claiming this on the authority of the text of the regulations. The USA is a nation of laws, and those regulations have the power of law. If it came to that, a judge isn't going to disregard them just because you think they're too expensive. If you think otherwise, can you provide case law to support your view?

By law, that one-off intentional radiator absolutely does need to be certified. The FCC's enforcement priorities will be different depending whether that product is a little 2.4 GHz radio or a television transmitter, but their enforcement discretion doesn't change the law. Anyone who wants to be compliant needs to pay for the testing (or use a certified module, which is often easy and cheap; I've done that several times myself).

Lots of people disregard lots of laws because they're too expensive to comply with. Most of them get away with it, and a few of them get nasty surprises. I believe that I've given both the correct legal advice and a correct description of typical (not fully legal) practice. It's not helpful to conflate the two.

[R0b0t1]

The text of the law matters not as much as what the law was intended to do. In any case, by saying the one off needs certified you've gone off into la-la land; any reasonable person classifies it as a test/measurement device and gets on with their life.

[tripletao]

You are failing to distinguish between the law as it's written and the law as it's currently enforced, and inventing a quasi-legal framework with no relationship to actual American law to justify your conflation. It's true that judges will sometimes consider legislative intent when the text is unclear; but in this case, the text is perfectly clear, so that's not relevant.

Large companies, small companies that want to get bought by large companies, and other conservative entities generally aim to comply with the law as written, even though there's lots beyond that you can probably get away with. Everyone should judge for themselves how far they want to push from clearly legal actions to grey to clearly illegal but unenforced; but they should know which one they're doing, and your advice isn't helping.

If we submitted a KDB inquiry asking the FCC whether the board in question required certification, what do you think they'd say? (It's free, and you typically get a quite competent response within a few days. If anyone wants to try, please use a generic description, and not a link to the particular product. I doubt the FCC would waste their time enforcing, but the chance isn't zero and the developers don't need that attention.) Or why do you think the Pi developers got certs?

[R0b0t1]

The words on paper are only a lens which you view what was originally intended. I'm not doing anything abnormal, and judges always consider legislative intent. We are not ruled by the particulars of language.

I generally aim to comply with the law as much as possible as well, but the people in this post (including yourself) seem to have no idea of the true cost of complying with the interpretation of the FCC rules you are putting forth.

Yes, if you ask the FCC whether it requires certification they would probably say yes, mainly because they do not want to undermine their authority. This is something I've dealt with quite a bit with pretty much any regulatory body; they pick the most restrictive and burdensome interpretation regardless of what common sense or existing or future court cases eventually say.

[tripletao]

I currently work for a large company with a strict compliance team, so I'm well aware of the cost. We pay it, and it's both (a) quite a lot of money, and (b) an utterly insignificant fraction of our overall development budgets. I believe most major tech companies or well-funded startups do the same.

In the past, I've done other stuff less strictly (though again, certified modules--which you didn't seem to be aware of--are the quick, easy and compliant answer for many low-volume products). I was under no illusions that anything but the FCC's enforcement discretion was protecting me, though. Your concept of the law is simply wrong, wishful thinking. It seems there's nothing I can write that would convince you of this; but please discuss with a lawyer or other qualified person that you trust, before you or someone you're advising gets in to serious trouble.

Your viewpoint is particularly dangerous because if you look through the FCC's formal enforcement history, you'll see occasional massive fines, but only after the noncompliant entity ignored multiple attempts to resolve the matter informally. Anyone who acknowledges and corrects their noncompliance after the first threatening letter probably gets a slap on the wrist at worst; but someone who persists under the belief that a judge would let them disregard the text of the law to save $10k will (a) incur much greater legal costs regardless of whether they win or lose, and then (b) near-certainly lose.

You could say this system gives too much weight to the regulator's own interpretation of its rules. I wouldn't disagree; but it's how most regulation works, and the regulated ignore it at their peril.

[R0b0t1]

>I believe most major tech companies or well-funded startups do the same.

That's nice. Are those the only types of businesses who can enter the market? I'm also aware of modules, but using them is not free.

Your concept of the law is more wrong, and this I offer as proof: Language is imprecise and limited. It is more likely that the text of the law fails to track the intent of the law than otherwise.

Throughout this I have never said I would disregard a notice that a product I had made was emitting or otherwise faulty, and indeed I believe that is the first check on most low volume products that are sold "without certification."

To behave otherwise, and allow the prior limiting of otherwise benign and nondisruptive behavior, is to give in to petty tyranny and against the founding ethos of the United States.

[tripletao]

My concept of the law is based on the advice of many expensive lawyers, who are paid based on their ability to predict (a) what might cause the regulator to take action against us, because that would probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars win or lose; and, to a lesser but still significant extent, (b) what the judge would rule in that case. Yours appears to be based entirely on your own wishful thinking, and you haven't once cited any authority beyond yourself. If judges routinely disregard the unambiguous and constitutional (and not otherwise preempted by other written law) text of the law, then you should be able to produce case law where that happened. Why haven't you?

Seriously, this is like arguing with a sovereign citizen. The law isn't just some abstract philosophical ideal. The law is the set of rules that determine how the government exercises its hard power, including the power to block import of your product, seize money from your bank account, or, ultimately, send police to arrest you, with any necessary violence if you resist. EMC regulations tend to stay pretty far on the polite side of that spectrum; but the result when people with a delusional concept of law meet actual government power still typically isn't good.

Can you give an example of evidence that would convince you that your concept of the law is wrong? As I said above, you could show me case law where the text of the law was unambiguous and not preempted by other written law, but the judge disregarded it anyways. What could I show you?

ETA: And you moved the goalposts when you said you wouldn't disregard "a notice [from the FCC] that a product I had made was emitting or otherwise faulty". An uncertified intentional radiator is noncompliant, regardless of whether it conforms to the technical limits. The FCC is under no obligation to confirm anything beyond the lack of certification before ordering the product off the market. We're talking about the requirement for certification, not the requirement to meet the technical limits (which the certification confirms; but meeting the technical limits absolutely is not a defense to lacking certification).

So if the FCC just said "your product is uncertified, stop selling it", would you comply? If no, then I think you know bad things would follow. But if yes, then why? You seem to believe (contrary to the guidance you expect from the FCC, and contrary to the text of the law) that no certification is required, right?