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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.
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?
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.
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
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.
Why should parents complain to the station? It has the same effect as censorship. I would state that adults should a) not be so easily offended and b) realize that while they may disprove, nobody else in the world should care, and move on with the lives.
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.
Appearently is okay to let your children watch the news reports of school shootings so they get the idea to do it themselves rather be responsible and in touch with your child enough to know that A) watching such thing isn't the brightest of ideas for your unstable goth brat, B) you might actually notice they are an unstable goth brat who has no idea how good their life is compared to someone with real problems.
Slightly in line with this rant
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
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
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!
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
- 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.