A probable consequence of Congress’ efforts to strengthen the FCC’s “indecency” enforcements, from Volokh:

[B]roadcasters have refrained from bringing judicial challenges to the regulation of broadcast indecency precisely because the fines were small, and rare, enough that broadcasters decided it was not worth the costs of antagonizing the FCC and Congress. Now, with heavy fines (and maybe even license revocation) on the line, broadcasters are more likely to do so . . .

This is significant, because the Supreme Court probably would and in my view should find these indecency regulations unconstitutional. With respect to newspapers and magazines, telephones, and cable television, the Supreme Court has held that the government may not reduce the adult population to viewing only what is fit for children . . . Broadcast has been the glaring exception in the Supreme Courts jurisprudence, but its special status is no longer tenable.

Excellent. In my view, the FCC has one, and only one, legitimate purpose: efficiently managing a limited resource held in public trust. E.g., granting and policing licenses in order to maximize the use of the airwaves while preserving signal quality.

It was a mistake to ever grant the FCC power over anything other than the technical aspects of broadcasting; the commission’s regulation of content has long been a glaring thorn in the side of a generally expansive 1st amendment jurisprudence. How can one logically reconcile the enormous protections accorded to free speech in cases of libel and defamation with no-fault $27,500 fines for naughty words like the one my title above? It’s ricockulous. Here’s hoping this beast does finally get put to rest.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2004 at 11:45 by danimal and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.