Joined: 9/8/2008
Posts: 14
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The blogosphere is all-atwitter over Jenny Slate's utterance of the
"f-word" on SNL this past weekend. Although it was uttered after
midnight on a weekend and is outside of the "family hour" portion of
the broadcast day, this is no guarantee that the FCC won't reserve its
right to enforce its obscenity provisions in this case. NBC executives
are understandably concerned, especially since this could be the first
obscenity challenge in which we find out where the Genachowski
commission stands on such enforcement. What do you think? Do you think that the FCC should or will come down on NBC?
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Joined: 12/3/2009
Posts: 1
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There's a bit of history as told years ago by former FCC EIC/District Director out 'Frisco way, Phil Kane (under his then alias, Ploni Almoni, or a Jewish version of "John Doe"), that reveals part of why Pacifica was and is bad case law that should be reversed as Supreme Court error. It's the part that preceded Carlin's infamous 7 Words recording, that in turn became the focus of a court precedent laden not just with the same style of arbitrary vagueness that resulted in a correct result in 1964 with Jacobellis v Ohio refusing to legally define "pornography", but overt religious prejudice, hateful censorship based on religious bigotry, and issues of difficult child rearing standards where what many presume are normal practices in effect are pathologies that harm kids relative to any honest neutral standards or US civil rights enforcement.
As to Phil's oral history, the Pacifica Frisco outlet approached the FCC for an advisory ruling as to the legality of airing a dramatic reading of an Edward Albee play, as a holiday special event for their audience. The FCC did a circular dance around the question, responding it couldn't offer an answer. If it said it was legal and received complaints, such an answer would conflict with its legal duties to review complaints and potentially impose sanctions. If it said it wasn't legal and was wrong, that would be illegal prior restraint.
Gee, guys, doesn't that sound exactly like the rationale Potter Stewart used in his Jacobellis v Ohio opinion years earlier to explain why it was impossible to define terms like "pornography", or perhaps also "indecency", in a manner compatible with core standards of law? Add to that some religious prejudices inherent to the very topic of such issues that a court dominated by Catholic bigots tends to dismiss, and many litigants don't bother to argue those clearly important 1st and 14th Amendment issues. The needed response isn't "here we go again", but "how do we clean up bad case law, and flush Rabid Religious Reich political tampering to pretend a flawed legal concept justifies aggressive FCC use for fundamentally illegal purposes?"
Over in the archives of Findlaw.com 's "Writ" site for legal professionals, Julie Hilden has a pair of technical law commentaries explaining some of the reasons why not just Pacifica, but also the Miller v CA precedent for current "obscenity" standards, are defective court effluent. Miller is also laden with prejudices and not neutral standards for its limited preemptions of local laws, while it creates a tilted playing field that makes civil rights variable and unpredictable depending on where one lives or does business. Where did "equal protections of law" go?
A Google search for "fuck the FCC" reveals not just a well known Eminem rap, but over 65,000 hits including a similarly titled song by Eric Idle of Monty Python, and numerous serious social and legal commentaries. The very concept that there are or can be "profane" words in a secular legal system is a fraud. What alleged gods do we specify that might be offended, and how exactly can there be a neutral, secular specification for what does or does not offend supposed deities (the root meaning of "profane")? No FCC fraud to wrap notions of profanity or indecency in Miller-like legalese can undo the fraud in pretending such notions have any valid place in US law or regulation.
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