F*cked by the F*CC

F*cked by the F*CC -- I don't mean to come of as obsessed with this issue, but this cover story from The Nation (by Jeff Jarvis) is an excellent summary of the ramifications of current FCC nannyism...

"I asked Robert Corn-Revere--the First Amendment attorney who recently got Lenny Bruce pardoned and who litigated against the Communications Decency Act--about the constitutionality of current regulations and new legislation. He replied: 'What constitutionality?... The FCC has done its best to prolong the longevity of this doctrine by keeping it out of court.'

"In compelling testimony before Congress, Corn-Revere pleaded for a long-overdue constitutional review of indecency policy. He complained that the FCC's indecency (and now profanity) standards evade the tests that courts grant for obscenity: The FCC judges a work not as a whole but by just one word; it judges not by the standard of an 'average person' but by that of a child; and it short-circuits due process (Stern complains that his company settled $1.71 million in fines in 1995 only because the FCC was using it to hold licenses hostage). Finally, Corn-Revere says, the enforcement is inconsistent. No one knows where the line is."

So much for the old concept of one's "day in court."