http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db1110/DOC-310961A1.txt
Wow, is this a shocker. My hunble little web site is cited as an “authority” in a case being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the first I’ve heard of it.
The case involves Pacifica Radio and the FCC’s indecency rules. They seem to be making the argument that in today’s media world, the line between “Radio” and other ways to get information is becoming meaningless, and the FCC should just let go of their anal rententive desire to “protect the children”, but only on radio.
Pacifica is about as far toward the Socialist / Communist side as you’ll find on radio in the United States.
I listen to a lot of radio and I hear things much worse on a regular basis that Don Imus saying “nappy headed ho”. Obscenity enforcement is an arbitrary tool used to bludgeon only certain people in certain situations.
I really have mixed feelings about this. The “protect the children” argument goes along the lines of “well, if I buy a clock radio for my child”, I don’t want them to hear “x”…. well, that has a pretty obvious answer. Buy them an alarm clock. But my car has a radio!….. well, it doesn’t have to, and you’re the person in control of the car. The same people will give their child a TV to watch 10 hours a day absorbing thing much worse that the word for excrement.
On the other hand, people being people and teenage boys being hormonally challenged, college radio stations will become little more than young pre-men trying out their new vocabulary.
The risk here is that the FCC will go the other direction – and say Pacifica is correct, and they really need the power to “Protect the children” everywhere.