A speech by Grace Hopper at Lake Forest College in 1982 contains this gem:
“Always remember that it’s much easier to apologize than to get permission,” she said. “In this world of computers, the best thing to do is to do it.”
Her point, of course, was about avoiding bureaucracy while doing good, not about taking liberties with ethics. Especially in large organizations, I think this can be helpful advice, at least when employed with care.
Towards the end of this Repeater Builder article on NOAA weather radio is hidden an absolute gem. While it's astute advice on dealing with the Federal Communications Commission, it almost seems to double as a life lesson. Credit for the below goes to Mike, WA6ILQ.
First, he sets some good background on how the amateur radio service is regulated:
Second, please note that the USA FCC rules for ham radio are written very, very differently than any other portion of the FCC's rules. In fact, amateur radio, part 97, could have been written by a different person (or team).
In broadcast, land mobile (i.e. commercial / business 2-way), GMRS, marine radio, forestry, aircraft, paging, public safety (police, fire, etc) and all the other services their rules are written in the format of "you can do X, you can do Y, you can do Z", and that's it. The FCC has to be petitioned for permission to do anything else.
[snip]
On the other hand the amateur rules are written in the reverse format of "you can't do A, you can't do B, you can't do C". And the amateur rules - part 97 - is the ONLY section of the FCC rules that is written that way. NO PETITION IS REQUIRED for permission to do anything else.
In other words the hams can do D, E, F, G, H, etc. without asking and we can't afford to lose this privilege. This is how innovation happens - like RTTY, FSTV (ATV), SSTV, packet, PSK, AX.25, APRS, IRLP, etc. Rule change petitions are required only if the hams want changes to A, B or C.
And then, he brings it home:
On the other hand, if you ask in advance some low level FCC flunkie will be told to send you a letter that covers everybody's ass by saying DON'T - because every other part of the FCC rules that they deal with every day is full of Thou Shalt Nots, and their day-to-day mindset is such that they can't comprehend anything else.
I repeat - the amateur radio service is the only one where the rules say "You can't do A, B or C and you CAN do anything else". The average FCC flunkie that spends their whole career handling broadcast, land mobile, public safety, aircraft, forestry, business, public safety, pagers or cellphones totally forgets that.
But from then on that "DON'T" letter becomes official policy and can be referred to in future cases - something that anybody else at the FCC can point to from the time that said flunkie wrote that letter onwards. And only because you just had to ask all hams lose one more privilege.
In short: asking permission unnecessarily can hurt not just you, but also risk establishing a bad precedent. If what you're doing is ethical and easily explained, it's better to just do it.