FCC's Powell Worried About Indecency Bills

FCC's Powell Worried About Indecency Bills

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation meant to crack down on indecency on the nation's airwaves could run afoul of free speech rights and undermine the overall effort, Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) Chairman Michael Powell said on Wednesday.



The House and Senate Commerce committees have both passed bills that would sharply boost fines of television and radio broadcasters who violate indecency regulations. They would also require the FCC (news - web sites) to hold a hearing to determine whether a broadcast license should be revoked after three violations.


"There are a number of things that give me pause because I don't want to see enforcement remedies being captured by constitutional litigation," Powell told reporters after speaking to a group of state regulators.


"Things like three strikes and you're out, I think is an understandable idea but when you think it through, I can imagine scenarios where it can be more problematic than not," he said.


more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20040310/pl_nm/media_indecency_powell_dc

This is unprecedented.

As much as some people may find sexual images and talk distasteful, these laws against indecency are very dangerous. They are always vague, and leave things like deciding the ARTISTIC or LITERARY value of a broadcast to people like Antonin Scalia. Do we really want Antonin Scalia deciding what has SOCIAL or POLITICAL value for us? no.

And, the indecency laws are supposed to reflect what the "average citizen" would find offensive, and given the size and success of the porn industry in this country, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of sex that average people find offensive.

The only other alternative is to sanitize everything that is broadcast down to "child safe" levels.

I say, if thine TV offends thee, shut it off.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

He's also lobbying for the provisions undercutting media consolidation (studying if consolidation = more indecency!!) to be removed from the bill and threatening that the fines may not pass if the whole bill snags on this provision.

And the not applying this to sat and cable is starting to look like a massive competitive disadvantage. Censored prime time vs. Tony Soprano.

I DESPISE him and DESTEST him for what he's done for the media monopolies.

And I know he is only serving them, but IF we could really get back to a system that looked more like local/regional ownership, with no monopoly control over programming, THEN we might have "community standards" in a natural way.

But of course the SHRUB must be PRUNED first.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

Welcome to DU.
That is a great movie.

Just like his daddy Colon.. He's worried??? , give me a break-- he does everything he's told to do and more-- just like "poodle" Blair

"Things like three strikes and you're out, I think is an understandable idea but when you think it through, I can imagine scenarios where it can be more problematic than not," he said."


It probably sounded like a good idea when you were a little more certain that Chimpy would actually win the election. It'd suck to pass these new laws and then have them turned AGAINST you, huh?

one-dimensional, simplistic approaches styled to make good political soundbites - does not sound policy make.

That is when you are forced to uphold the Bush's political agenda when you know it to be wrong and a threat to the public well-being, or, as I think is probaly the case with Powell here, you see your own ass coming under the gun from the public and the courts.

EPA's Christie Whitman was under similar pressure on environmental issues at Kyoto and Ground Zero pollution.

Shouldn't have gotten into that stare-down with the "King of All Media", Mikey...
Unfortunately for him, he's now got to enforce the excessive "Ha-rumph! I'll show YOU, I'm a CONGRESSMAN!" fine law passed down from the Thug Pit.