Supreme Court to Review FCC Ban on Profanity

[flashl]

Source: Washington Post

The Supreme Court today announced it would review the Federal Communications Commission's policy banning even the fleeting use of expletives on the airwaves, the first time in 30 years the court has considered broadcast decency standards.

The FCC in 2004 reversed its previous policy and said even the one-time use of obscenities on broadcast television and radio was a violation of decency standards. The agency reprimanded Fox Broadcasting for separate incidents in 2002 and 2003 when singer Cher and celebrity Nicole Richie, during live award shows, used variations of a vulgar, four-letter word.

The FCC said the rules were necessary to protect the public from declining standards of decency, and said technological advances made it possible for networks to better police what went out over the airwaves.

...

The Bush administration urged the Supreme Court to take the case. The appeals court ruling, Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said, had placed the commission in the "untenable position of having a grant of authority that the public expects it to exercise . . . but that the Second Circuit has indicated cannot be meaningfully exercised'' consistent with the First Amendment.

Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031700842.html

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It must require years of practice to simultaneously render the Constitution a 'dead letter' while claiming to uphold the Amendments.

[pleah]

1. FI!

[Demeter]

2. A Nation of Grumpy Old Men, Not Laws

Cheney doesn't really need Supreme Court dispensation, guys. He's a law unto himself.

[fascisthunter]

3. Supreme Court to Review their Right Wing Judicial Activism

such as unconstitutionally appointing a President.

[Quantess]

4. This is crucial, I'm SERIES!!!1!

If only there were fewer 4-letter words on the boob tube, all our problems would be solved.
:eyes: