Congress seeks last word on broadcast obscenity

CONGRESS SEEKS LAST WORD ON BROADCAST OBSCENITY
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
The battle over dirty words shifts back to Congress today. A Senate committee is expected to support legislation that would authorize regulators to enforce a nearly zero-tolerance policy on the broadcast of certain expletives that was struck down last month. The bill would give the Federal Communications Commission explicit authority to make "a single word or image" indecent. The FCC ruled in March 2006 that almost any use of some expletives was indecent, even in live, unscripted instances. Broadcasters sued, saying the FCC had contradicted a long history of exempting so-called fleeting uses of the words and were infringing on their 1st Amendment rights. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the policy in June, ruling narrowly that the FCC had failed to justify it. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), who has been outspoken about cleaning up the airwaves, wrote the bill to overcome the court ruling.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-indecency19jul19,1,14...
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