Salon: "...arresting broadcasters on criminal charges for indecency..."

From Eric Boehlert at Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/14/fcc_and_indecency/index.html

Indecency wars
Activists who beat back the FCC on media consolidation are dismayed to find former allies leading an unprecedented effort to restrict radio and TV content.

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By Eric Boehlert
salon.com


April 14, 2005 | News that the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee wants to move indecency enforcement out of the hands of the Federal Communications Commission and start arresting broadcasters on criminal charges for indecency infractions is just the latest example of the aggressive bipartisan one-upmanship that's unfolding in Washington as politicians jockey for position over who can crack down harder, and with more imagination, against indecency on radio and television.

Public and legislative discussion of the indecency issue used to be limited almost exclusively to election-year cycles, but that tradition has been broken as momentum builds to institute the most radical FCC reforms in U.S. broadcast history. And unlike the last headline-making FCC debate -- over the contentious issue of media consolidation -- the current commission seems unified in its pursuit of those reforms, worrying activists who fear they skirt too close to censorship and would give politicians unprecedented control over the content of our culture.

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Among the sweeping, get-tough reforms Congress is considering are increasing the fine for indecency infractions from $32,500 to as much as $500,000 per incident, revoking broadcast licenses, instructing the FCC to start policing violent content as an indecency infraction (something the commission has never done before), fining artists whose broadcast material is indecent, fining writers who create indecent material in advance (as opposed to lines ad-libbed over the air), extending the agency's reach to include cable television and satellite radio, and requiring cable companies to offer a greater variety of channel packages so viewers can avoid potentially objectionable programming. (Because cable television is a paid subscription service, rather than a free public broadcast, the FCC now has no jurisdiction over its programming.)

But it was the comment by Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., that moved the debate into a drastic new direction -- one that was unimaginable just 18 months ago. Last week he told industry executives attending the National Cable and Telecommunications Association trade show that criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to enforce the indecency regulations. "I'd prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process," Sensenbrenner said.

"This is crazy," says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, in reference to this Republican trial balloon on criminalizing content. "Regulating the creation of content is a very slippery slope. Today it's raunchy words. What is it tomorrow?"

"Based on what's happened so far" in the indecency debate, "I fear the worst," says Robert McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois and the founder of the media reform group Free Press.

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the trampling of the 1st. Oh wait, its part of the one two punch that talibanizes america. Nuke the fillbuster, push in a whole pack of theocratic judges, and then all of these stupid unconstitutional laws become, just like that, constitutional.

Oh my. We are so fucked.

Until now, corporate media assumed that they were always going to be better off under the looser regulations of the Repukes, and treated them more than kindly. But, if they think that they may go to jail due to a new set of regulations, they may swing back to us.

edit: why, oh why don't I spell check?

a/k/a Rush Limbaugh. "Blow job" this, "blow job" that. I say we put him someplace where he can find out what it really means!

it seems that Jerry Springer can put on a show about pure trash , Opera can talk about sexual acts and Rush can talk about oral and that's o.k... but not Howard...I don't have the time or space to debate about Stern....but isn't that what these people are really talking about?

Despite Howard's rant this morning, it is not all about stern. He is a useful icon in the talibanization of amerika, a shiny object to distract the confusable. They want to shut down and/or control all outlets of free expression. They've spent a lot of time and money taking over the MSM and now, oops, new media is sprouting up all over the place. But it seems that they haven't much patience left for the slow strangle, so they are going to wield that big old stick of brute state force instead.