One-Name Celebrities and Four-Letter Words

There's no excuse for the FCC's indecency rulings.

Jacob Sullum | December 6, 2006

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The FCC’s hairsplitting is especially absurd because it applies only to broadcast programming, even though close to nine out of 10 U.S. households have cable or satellite TV. In a brief supporting the networks’ lawsuit, the Progress & Freedom Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology note that the proliferation of video delivery methods, including the Internet and DVDs by mail as well as various kinds of TV, undermines the special constitutional status of broadcasting, which supposedly merits less First Amendment protection because of its “uniquely pervasive presence.”

p>The brief suggests this trend, combined with existing technologies that allow parents to control what their kids see, augur a future in which household standards that vary from family to family replace “community standards” determined by the idiosyncrasies of FCC commissioners or complaints from one or two pressure groups. For those of us who think public officials should not be paid to ponder Cher’s tirades or Janet Jackson’s right breast, that future can’t come soon enough. o:p> /o:p> /p> p> o:p> /o:p> © Copyright 2006 by Creators Syndicate Inc. /p>