Legal Commentary

Supreme Court Upholds FCC Rulemaking on Indecency

By TChris

Today's 5-4 Supreme Court decision addressing the FCC's 2004 "Golden Globe Order" -- which "declared for the first time that an expletive (nonliteral) use of the F-Word or the S-Word could be actionably indecent, even when the word is used only once" -- will be of primary interest to practitioners and students of administrative law. It does not address the more interesting question: whether the FCC's tough stance against the use of naughty language is constitutional. (For the record, the F-word in question is not fudge and the S-word is not sugar. Use your imagination.)

The FCC's prudish sense of "indecency" is out-of-step with the reality of modern American life. This isn't surprising since the FCC's new-found puritanism was dictated by the religious right, which is responsible for "the lion's share" of indecency complaints. According to the FCC's revised sense of indecency, not only are the fleeting mentions of common expletives on live broadcasts indecent, so are brief views of female (and presumably male) buttocks, Janet Jackson's nipple, and even "pixilated body parts."

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By the time the Fox News case (which involves expletives uttered by Cher and Nicole Richey at two Billboard Music Awards broadcasts) is resolved, it might be clear whether the FCC will lighten up during the Obama administration. Let's hope it does. Kids should be protected (if they need protection) from naughty words and pixilated body parts by their parents, not by their government.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 28, 2009 (boomark / email).