Supreme Court Gets Indecent
March 17, 2008—New York, NY John Contrubis
The U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will receive the Federal Communication Commission's appeal of a Second Circuit (Court of Appeals of New York) decision, which found that the agency had failed to justify its standard for "fleeting" indecency.FOX challenged a March 2006 ruling, in which the FCC found that it violated decency rules when singer Cher blurted "f@#&" during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards broadcast and actress Nicole Richie used a variation of that word and "s#&%" during the 2003 awards. FOX argued that the government's decency standard was unclear, violated free-speech protections and that the rulings had contradicted earlier findings. The Second Circuit found that the FCC had "failed to articulate a reasoned basis" for its "fleeting" indecency standard and expressed skepticism about whether the courts would find it constitutional.
The Supreme Court's decision to review the case is the first time it has taken up the issue of broadcast indecency since its 1978 decision in the case FCC v. Pacifica Foundation. That case involved George Carlin's "Filthy Words" radio broadcast in which it upheld the FCC's authority to sanction indecent material broadcast over the airwaves.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the case and to issue a decision during its upcoming term that begins in October.