In article ,
wrote:
"where are the laws or
regulations which "forbid" them? "

Poor choice of words, there probably is no actual law or regulation, but for some reason
manufacturers omit those frequencies.

Probably because it costs something (in engineering and in dollars) to
implement a "DC to daylight" design. The manufacturers don't really
have any incentive to do this, and include the "missing octave" (above
the medium-wave AM band, and below the start of HF at around 3 MHz),
because very few of their customers care about this, because there
isn't any commercial or social programming using these frequencies.
The semiconductor companies which make specialized ICs for receiving
middle-wave AM, VHF FM, etc. probably don't make chips specific to
these frequencies because there's no commercial demand.

If you want a radio which receives these, they're certainly available
"off the shelf". "Communications receiver" radios like the Icom
IC-R8500 will do this very well indeed - that one receives everything
from 100 kHz to 2 GHz, except (in the U.S.) for those cellphone band
frequencies I mentioned.

These receivers aren't cheap, of course.

Or, build any of numerous LF/MF receiver designs out there on the
net... a simple MW AM superhet design can be adapted easily enough, or
use an NE602 and make a single-chip direct-conversion receiver (add a
transistor or two to drive a loudspeaker).

There is something though because years ago the FCC was considering pulling a station's license
because their programming "appeared to be intended for domestic
audiences".

If they were trying to abuse an "international short-wave" station
license to do domestic broadcasting, I'm not surprised. The FCC
regulations on stations for those frequencies are very clear - they're
to be used only for broadcasting programming to other countries. You
have to have at least 50 kilowatts of transmitter power, _and_ a
directional antenna with at least 10 dB of gain (which means "big!")
aimed at the specific area your broadcast is intended to serve.

The FCC points out that the costs are high (maybe a million dollars)
and it's not a very efficient way to reach international audiences
these days.

The frequency uses are coordinated between the FCC, and other ITU
countries, to minimize interference in these broadcasts between
countries. I haven't read the ITU regs (a treaty to which the
U.S. has been signatory for a lot of decades) but I strongly suspect
that the international agreements for these frequencies _forbid_
signatory countries using them for in-country broadcasting... there
are other frequencies set aside for that.

The FCC's regulations are quite clear:

§ 73.788 Service; commercial or sponsored programs.

(a) A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only
an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of
this country and which will promote international goodwill,
understanding, and cooperation. Any program solely intended for and
directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet
the requirements for this service.

These aren't new regs; this section dates back to 1963 and was last
amended in 1973.

Need I mention that the
station was full of dissidents who were very critical of the US government ?

No, you don't need to mention it, because it's really rather
irrelevant. The FCC regulations apply to _any_ US organization that
wants to set up an international broadcast station. Dissidents have a
right to equal treatment before the law, _and_ they have an equal
obligation to respect the rules (or step up and face the consequences
for not doing so).

So, if that group of dissidents applies for an international broadcast
authorization, asked for a frequency assignment, and then tried to
"re-purpose" their station in a way which is _specifically_ prohibited
by the regulations, it's not surprising they got slapped... and I have
no particular sympathy for them. I expect a similar thing would
happen to any other "international" broadcaster that tried a similar
stunt.