US Supreme Court to hear arguments about FCC's indecency regulations

MUMBAI: The US Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the FCC should still have a role in policing the country?s airwaves or whether its indecency regulations violate guarantees of free speech and due process.

With their free speech rights at issue, the major television networks are contesting the Federal Communications Commission‘s (FCC‘s) indecency policy that was upheld in a 1978 dispute over Carlin‘s Act. The networks‘ challenge involved more recent events.

The networks have argued successfully in lower courts that they exist side by side with cable channels that are beyond the FCC?s regulation. Therefore singling them out is not only nonsensical but unconstitutional.

Earlier Washington lawyer Carter G. Phillips, who represents Fox and other networks, told the court in a brief that stated, ?Today, broadcasting is neither uniquely pervasive nor uniquely accessible to children, yet broadcasters are still denied the same basic First Amendment freedoms as other media,?

Lawyers for Fox Television Stations have said that the Supreme Court should reverse its long-standing view that broadcast programming is subject to tougher rules than cable because of the scarcity of the airwaves and broadcast TV‘s pervasiveness in American life.

The networks are challenging sanctions for outbursts of those expletives and fleeting nudity before 10 pm when children are most likely to be watching. They say federal policy, which permits profanity in some situations, such as TV broadcast of the movie Saving Private Ryan, is unconstitutionally vague and violates free speech rights.