Jacob Sullum on the FCC's Incomprehensible Censorship

|

Three decades ago, in FCC v. Pacifica, the Supreme Court upheld content-based regulation of broadcasting on the grounds that the medium was "uniquely pervasive" and "uniquely accessible to children." Yesterday the Court heard a case that gives it an opportunity to reconsider that ruling. Senior Editor Jacob Sullum says such a re-examination is long overdue, since Pacifica has allowed arbitrary censorship based on assumptions that were always questionable and are now technologically obsolete.