In 2009, all television signals in the US will be converted to digital signals:

In the United States, all U.S. television broadcasts will be exclusively digital as of February 17, 2009, by order of the Federal Communications Commission. This deadline was signed into law in early 2006.[11] Furthermore, as of March 1, 2007, all new television sets that can receive signals over-the-air, including pocket-sized portable televisions, must include digital or HDTV tuners so they can receive digital broadcasts.[12] Currently, most U.S. broadcasters are transmitting their signals in both analog and digital formats; a few are digital-only. Citing the bandwidth efficiency of digital TV, after the analog switch-off, the FCC will auction off channels 52–59 (the lower half of the 700 MHz band) for other communications traffic,[13] completing the reallocation of broadcast channels 52–69 that began in the late 1990s.

The analog switch-off ruling, which so far has met with little opposition from consumers or manufacturers, would render all non-digital televisions dark and obsolete on the switch-off date, unless connected to an external off-the-air tuner, analog or digital cable, or a satellite system.

What I’m curious about: does this mean that there will be new opportunities for regular people to “pirate” analog broadcast signals in the future? Once all signals go digital, can we just set up community-controlled broadcasting signals to have finally real public access programming?