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Supreme Court to Hear FCC Indecency Case
MachineShedFred writes "The Supreme Court of the United States has announced that it will be hearing the FCC's appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that the FCC has changed its policy on fleeting expletives without adequate explanation. It's now on the FCC to explain to the Supreme Court why its policy has changed. This is also the first time the Supreme Court has heard a major 'broadcast indecency' case in 30 years."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
8-1 that the FCC is indecent. Damn you Justice Ginsberg!
I think I speak for us all when I say "About fucking time!"
How blatantly arbitrary and unfair. Why is the FCC flipping out over "fck" on the radio after this went unpunished!
On a related note( possibly straying offtopic) this was a big issue in L.A. and elsewhere across the US with Spanish-language radio stations that were getting away with their equivalent of uncensored Howard Stern. How will the FCC go after them? What about Korean radio curses? When does it end? Hopefully the FCC will be so swamped with complaints that they'll be unable to investigate them all, and then they'll quit being our mommy and focus their efforts towards the future of spectral management.
In some cases you can watch people fuck, but you can't say fuck. Others you can see someone get fucked up, but can't say fuck. I mean seriously, what the fuck?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
The fucking FCC can fucking go fuck themselves if they fucking think that removing fucking expletives from the fucking TV is going to protect the fucking children. I fucking heard the goddamn fuck parents swear all the goddamn time and I am perfectly fucking OK, goddammit.
When I read this in TFA... ...I couldn't help but wonder if the FCC thinks fire comes out of your ass when you fuck?!
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"f------ brilliant." The FCC said the "F-word" in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can trigger enforcement.
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~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I am baffled that American media is so afraid of offending it's viewers and readers that AP is indulging in self censorship to such an extent that they don't even write the word shit in the article. "Cher used the phrase "F--- 'em" and a Dec. 10, 2003, Billboard awards show in which reality show star Nicole Richie said, "Have you ever tried to get cow s--- out of a Prada purse? It's not so f------ simple." What I find most disturbing is that people who find words like fuck, ass, cunt etc being too offensive to be broadcasted often are the very same that shout the most when Muslims object against publication of images depicting Mohammed.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Why is it that adults can't act their age and a) change the station when they hear something that offends them or b) contact the station directly to deal with their frustration. If enough people change the station when they hear something offensive, the sponsors will stop putting their ads during a certain programme and the programme will get pulled. If enough people decide that they like shows where people can say "fuck" then the show will stay on the air. Why can't it just work like this?
Also, don't get into this "think of the children!" business. When I was a kid (which wasn't that long ago) there were a lot of shows I wasn't allowed watching because my parents didn't allow me to watch them (I was also only really allowed to listen to one radio station). My parents television got the channels with these shows that I wasn't allowed watching, but they kept an eye on my television habits instead of using tv like a baby-sitter or substitute parent and expecting a government to keep me from seeing or hearing inappropriate things.
what's that now?
I think it's very likely that the FCC will lose on this one. The first amendment is one of the few areas that can often bring both sides of the court together, and one of the few rights that may be even stronger today than it was decades back.
My bet is that, while the basic principle that the FCC can regulate public airwaves won't be challenged, the court will chastise them for inconsistent and arbitrary enforcement and their unclear guidelines.
Gosh darn it! Isn't that the truth!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
There was an episode that I can't remember where Picard utters under his breath, "merde!" (Shit! in French). Nothing happened - which is good in my book.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
One approach would be to have the default as-shipped v-chip settings be more conservative, so that people have to go into a setup menu to specifically request more violence, more nudity, more adult language. Given that, networks should then be free to mark their broadcasts appropriately (regardless of time of day) and not worry about who will be offended. Anyone offendable won't be able to watch the broadcast without changing their TV settings to allow it.
IOW, why have both the FCC and V-chips. One should be enough as far as content goes.
I hope the Supreme Court pisses all over the FCC and this fucking indecency shit and gets it thrown out.
Obligatory Monty Python/Eric Idle FCC video.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
And not have any form of TV service, be it cable or otherwise, coming into our house. Granted, my girlfriend and I don't have kids as of yet (we are only 23), but when we do, TV will be something that DVD's and video games are displayed on, not something that MTV will be piped into.
I would much rather have my child playing video games for 20 hours a week than watching TV for 20 hours a week. At least by playing video games, they are learning hand-eye coordination, problem solving, strategic thinking, and awareness of their surroundings. Granted, there is the whole "violent video games" argument, but that's neither here nor there insofar as what I think of TV.
I don't object to TV because it's violent or anything like that...I object to it because you are doing literally nothing while sitting in front of it. Try beating Ninja Gaiden Black on Master Ninja difficulty and tell me you weren't just doing something involved.
Living With a Nerd
I'm a DJ for a very large college radio station (broadcasting all over the Boston metropolitan area in the middle of FM dial) and the most disconcerting facet of the post-wardrobe malfunction FCC crackdowns is the fact that even a single incident would result in my station being shut down. We got one complaint a few years ago (in the more tolerant era), so now, if we were to become a repeat offender, the fine--several hundred thousand dollars--would completely bankrupt the station. SInce we're independently funded through ad revenue, there's no way we could pay, and we'd be off the air--just if somebody complained to the FCC because a late-night DJ slipped up and said "Fuck" on air, even when we're actually allowed to play music containing the same word.
To me, at least, it seems incredibly obvious that the punishments are beyond the limits of sanity. The FCC is trying to look out for the standards of our community? Yes, my station plays underground rock and hip-hop at night (I DJ for those programs), but during the day, it's exclusively jazz and classical. If, at 3am, a hip-hop DJ curses, leading to a complaint and the end of the station, who really loses? I suspect that the thousands of classical and jazz listeners would be more on the losing end than the asshole who called in the complaint or any of the other people who happened to hear the word "Fuck" in the middle of the night.
The FCC is just one manifestation of how colossally fucked up governmental regulation is becoming. I'm all for the government trying to help out the people, but not when there's clearly no understanding of how the real world actually operates.
The Supreme Court chooses to hear roughly 100 cases per year from a pool of some 7,500 petitions. After not touching the issue of broadcast language for 30 years, at least four Justices agreed to hear such a case now. Is this an effort by the conservative wing of the Court to uphold the FCC's (and the Bush Administration's) position that some censorship is required and legitimate? Perhaps, but I think this case might be about something else.
The Appeals Court did not rule that the FCC had abridged speech or press freedoms in these cases, but instead that the FCC's policy was not sufficiently well justified. There are standards for the behavior of regulatory agencies like the FCC that require them to spell out in sufficient detail why they've made a change in the rules. The Appeals Court ruled that the FCC had failed to meet these standards. That Court also advised the FCC it didn't think there was a way the Commission could implement its intended policy consititutionally. Since the Supremes are really ruling on the procedural matter, the question of why they took this case becomes even more cloudy.
I suspect the Bushies are defending other cases where the issue is whether a regulatory agency has provided sufficient justification for changing course. Rules like these restrict the president's ability to change the regulatory regime since opponents of the changes can go to court claiming the agency didn't fulfill its obligations. All those proponents of a strong Executive in the Administration like Dick Cheney would probably love to see the Supremes agree that the FCC had done its job.
I wish we could learn who voted for cert, but those votes are secret.
It's about fucking time.
use of frell!?! Ah yes, why the Frell do I have to be the one to mention frelling dren!
ah yes, farscape found a loophole in the FCC censorship problem... just make up a word, it's made up after all. and with websites it's easy to link a made up word to a 'real' curse word.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The FCC has pending before it "hundreds of thousands of complaints" regarding the broadcast of expletives, Clement said. He argued that the appeals court decision has left the agency "accountable for the coarsening of the airwaves while simultaneously denying it effective tools to address the problem."
I think "hundreds of thousands" is hyperbole -- I can imagine MAYBE a few tens of thousands at most. And it has been shown in the past that the vast majority of these are usually automated "copy, sign, and send" complaints coming from a very tiny group of people associated with some of the right-wing Christian watchdog groups. I seem to recall that of the complaints that came in about the infamous "wardrobe malfunction," all but a tiny handful came from ONE group's members.
I guess I'm someone who just never understood the whole concept of certain words arbitrarily being designated as "naughty." Profanity serves a purpose in language -- it can be overdone, but there are also times when it is entirely appropriate. I cringe every time I watch "Law and Order" or other crime shows and hear some gang member or drug dealer use the contrived euphemism "friggin'" -- it rings SO false and destroys the credibility of the character.
And I guess I don't understand people who are offended to the point of pathology by words. Just words. Not even necessarily the idea behind the words (which can be offensive, for much better reasons) but the words themselves. It's like hearing or using those words is some sort of magical incantation that will corrupt their children, compromise their salvation, and spell the doom of Western civilization.
The best of the bunch are the folks who condescendingly say, "The English language is so rich, there are plenty of words and synonyms -- why so you have to use THOSE words?" And my response is: if you truly appreciate the breadth and variety of the language, why are you trying to LIMIT the number of words that can be used?
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
That reminds me of a true story. A long time ago, I attended RPI, which (at the time at least) had a radio station not known for its large audience. The programming was often very specialized, and one such show was hosted by Greek students. Not fraternity-style Greeks, but real Greeks -- the kind who use "pi" and "sigma" to spell words.
I should also add that the community of Greek students on the RPI campus was quite small. It was so small at the time that the vice-president of the Greek Students' Association was Italian. (I am not making this up.)
At any moment, their radio show was estimated to have an audience of about six. And sure enough, or at least so I was told, one of its DJs muttered, on the air, in perfectly audible Greek, "Hey, help me figure out how to control this fucking thing!"
Yes, WRPI did get an angry off-campus phone call.
Thffpt. Does anyone know how to say "life sucks, wear a helmet" in Greek?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
This is the real consequences of the "wardrobe malfunction" bullshit. Everyone complained about how small the fines were for such a large corporation, so the FCC upped them - for everyone. Now every small independent radio station is terrified to run anything remotely edgy, because one fine is more than their yearly budget. It's a real mess.
Like they said, "Can not tell you what is obscene, but we know it when we see it."
I think that was just a ploy to get a log or p0rn delivered to them at no cost.
There, fixed it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
...about 'g' rated evangelism on TV. Truly. What the fuck? If ANYTHING requires parental guidance, it's that religious brainwashing being brought to your 5 year old on public television. That crap should be what is being forced into different timeslots and censored. Certainly not given a "TV-G" rating! Christ!
Unfortunately. What I have seen is the progression from a culture where Niggers and Spicks were referred to in exactly that manner. But saying the work "fuck" would get a child slapped. An adult using "fuck" would be considered at least crude and unsocial.
Today, a child saying "nigger" might get slapped (or worse in some neighborhoods) but "fuck" has come into nearly common use.
Is this progress? It has been sixty years and while things change are we better off? Would it be better if neither nigger or fuck were in common use?
A point to consider is that we may have crossed the point of no return with "fuck". I seriously doubt that we can retract it from use today so you might as well get used to it. We did not get hear by concensus, it just sort of happened. Is it pointless to consider the role of the FCC because it is just too late?
I'd say for the most part social conventions that existed for a really long time have pretty much died out in the last fifty years. Things that were taken for granted as just not done publicly are now common. We have become a cruder, coarser society in many ways and this is a small point. I don't see us going back, though.
So you better get used to the idea that your children will be using "fuck" in everyday speech.
You can't take the sky from me...
Anybody ever notice that The Who's "Who are you?" tune contains the phrase "Who the fuck are you?" towards the end? I can't say that I've ever heard it bleeped, or omitted. It's just there, every time the song is played over the public "censored" airwaves.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"Obscenity is the crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." -- cloak42
What we first need to do is change the FCC so that it's not headed by appointed officials, but rather by elected representatives.
The FCC's power has grown far beyond it's original intention (regulating airwaves frequencies in the U.S.). Apparently they only do things in response to complaints. Or at least that's how it once was. But the really fucked up thing is 99% of complaints come from one organization.
So essentially this one single organization is responsible for most of the - detrimental in my opinion - changes to what is allowed to be broadcast or not.
It's not the popular decision. People just think it is because this one fucked up organization has such broad powers and people just assume that it's the popular opinion. It is not.
The organization responsible for all this? The Parent's Television Council. The sick thing is they're proud to be the nation's most influential advocacy organization yet have barely a million members. That's right one million uptight fucks are responsible for 99.8-99.9% of all FCC regulation that affects 303 million people.
And the FCC allows it.
To other countries: The US is not up tight! Most of us love a good nipple on TV. It's this one organization that has been acting via the screwed up joke that is our FCC that has watered down our TV, not popular opinion.
Question everything
i want a c-chip and for commercials to have a special broadcast flag of their own. that way, i can program the C-Chip in my teevee to automatically blank the screen when a commercial comes on.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Bad language on TV is double-plus ungood.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
A V-Chip only picks up the rating a broadcaster puts on a show. An awards show is usually rated TV-E (for everyone) because there isn't expected to be violence, language, sexuality, etcetera. It doesn't pick up actual violence, language, sexuality, etcetera as it is broadcast like a human does.
And what more, "decency timeslots" doesn't work here either because an awards show starts in the 8pm range (prime time) so the most people can watch it and, as said, because it's not supposed to have grown-up content in it.
Looks like it is you, anonymous one, who has obviated the responsibility for what the kids watch to technology.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
- Intercourse (blowjob, cock, cooter, cum, cunt, dick, dong, fuck, jizz, pussy, screw). This brings VD and extra mouths to feed.
- Elimination of waste material from the body (ass, fart, peter, piss, shit, turd). These spread disease.
- Religion (damn, god, hell). Names referring to spirits considered good are said to cheapen the name; names referring to spirits considered evil are said to make them more powerful.
Restrictions apply much less strictly to words in Childish (e.g. call the stork, poop, wee, etc.) because children have to have some name for their own parts and functions. They also apply less strictly to words in Medicalese (e.g. feces, flatulence, intercourse, penis, urine, vagina) which symbolize intent to apply a serious tone to the discussion of serious business.I would much rather have my child playing video games for 20 hours a week than watching TV for 20 hours a week. At least by playing video games, they are learning hand-eye coordination, problem solving, strategic thinking, and awareness of their surroundings. Where do you plan to have your children get their news and E/I, if not from television?
...is that the FCC even exists at all!
No where in the Constitution is the federal government allowed to regulate communications, networks, mediums of expression, obscenity, or indecency.
Libertas in infinitum
The federal government is NOT authorized to dictate community standards or communications protocols, or mediums etc. The FCC is prima facie unconstitutional and should be abolished.
Libertas in infinitum
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=1db975ca0a0f50630c01ed09381cca9d
Peter: They will clean up all your talking in a matter such as this
Brian: They will make you take a tinkle when you want to take a p*ss
Stewie: And they'll make you call fellatio a trouser-friendly kiss
Peter, Brian, & Stewie: It's the plain situation!
There's no negiotiation!
Peter: With the fellows at the freakin FCC!
Brian: They're as stuffy as the stuffiest of the special interest groups...
Peter: Make a joke about your bowels and they order in the troops
Stewie: Any baby with a brain could tell them everybody poops!
Peter, Brian, & Stewie: Take a tip, take a lesson!
You'll never win by messin'
Peter: With the fellas at the freakin' FCC
And if you find yourself with some you sexy thing
You're gonna have to do her with your ding-a-ling
Cause you can't say penis!
So they sent this little warning they're prepared to do the worst
Brian: And they stuck it in your mailbox hoping you could be co-erced
Stewie: I can think of quite another place they should have stuck it first!
Peter, Brian, & Stewie: They may just be neurotic
Or possible psychotic
They're the fellas at the freakin FCC!
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
Why is the controls on your DVR ok, but it's not OK to ahve those control built into the TV?
The V-Chip is a user controlled logging for the TV.
Any ways.
I know in your super world were your children would never do any wrong, and your children would never do anything behind your back, and you are always watching what your children are doing, and watch ALL broadcasts before your children see them this doesn't apply.
However, for most people not living under your regime having an area of time where you have reasonable expectations is probably a good thing.
For example:
Do you want a commercial advertising the money shots of the new up coming porn movie to be aired during Dora the Explorer? really?
Do you really want to be watching cartoons with your children and then have faces of death come on?
If you think those things are realistic examples, you should take a hard look at the internet, and then consider the push for more money from industry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I saw the Bud Dwyer incident too. What station did you see it on? I can only find references to Philly/Pittsburgh stations showing it, but I lived in the Harrisburg area and remember them showing it.
Jake Williams
jake dot williams at elcomsales dot com for a direct reply.