Despite the blurb on boingboing.net, Mitnick is not the first to have an application for renewal of a ham ticket denied. Herb Schoenbohm, ex-KV4FZ, had his application for renewal denied in 1992 after being convicted of felony telephone toll fraud. A Google search on KV4FZ will bring up several links with the information on the case; a good overview is at http://www2.arrl.org/w1aw/1998-arlb084.html .

Edited by author 06-20-2002 12:56 AM
It seems to me the difference here is that Schoenbohm "misrepresented" his felony conviction to the FCC and actively "solicited others, using Amateur Radio, to make ex parte presentations on his behalf, in violation of FCC rules." The ARRL website also makes the statement that "The FCC said his behavior, in combination with his fraud conviction, justified nonrenewal of his ham ticket." (emphasis added). In this particular case, I haven't seen anyone accuse Kevin Mitnick of any of that. On the contrary, it seems he has been fairly forthright about his conviction, which has nothing to do with ham radio.

Schoenbohm's conviction didn't have anything to do with ham radio either. Both his and Mitnick's, though, were related to illegal use of telecommunications facilities. Since that's the FCC's area of jurisdiction, it does make some sense. The FCC's policy for many years has been to revoke all licenses, in all services, held by someone whose conduct justifies revocation of any of them; the actions in these cases seems consistent to me.