FCC to Fine Curses More Than Nuke Violations

DiZNoG writes "With Congress debating new higher fines for broadcast indecency in the wake of last year's 'wardrobe malfunction' and Howard Stern's antics, Rolling Stone has published an interesting perspective on things. Rolling Stone did a review of fines levied by other federal regulatory bodies, and has found the new indecency fines disproportionately large compared to other fines. According to the article, if the bill passes then 'for the price of Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction' during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps at two nuclear reactors.' The article further states the largest fine the Nuclear Regulatory Commission levied last year was $60,000, this new bill would allow broadcast indecency fines up to $500,000. Glad I keep my broadcast cursing to a minimum, now if I could only get a handle on those pesky dangerous nuclear mishaps."

Re:Useful Terms

[miskatonic alumnus]

You left out tits.

Re:Useful Terms

[Lisandro]

Warning! You're gonna make it to the Profanity blacklist! [slashdot.org]. BOOOOO!

Re:Wrongfully Causing a Death?

[Dachannien]

Nope. There are many ways to wrongfully cause someone's death that don't involve premeditation.

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stag e=1&word=murder [princeton.edu]

Re:Wrongfully Causing a Death?

[anthony_dipierro]

Wrongful death is what one is charged with in a civil case, murder is a criminal charge. As an example, OJ Simpson was found not guilty of murder but was found responsible of wrongful death.

Re:Wrongfully Causing a Death?

[zackrentwood]

Not at all. OJ Simpson was held to be not guilty for the murder of his wife. But he was found to be liable for causing her wrongful death. Murder is a criminal charge, and a particularly nasty one. Being a criminal charge means that only the government can prosecute you for committing murder. The Model Penal Code requires for murder that:

(a) it is committed purposely or knowingly; or (b) it is committed recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.

(Excerpt from MPC 210.2. Murder) Murder requires a criminal conviction. This means that you can't be found guilty for murder unless you're convicted unanimously by a jury of your peers. Wrongful death is a civil cause of action. This means that any individual can sue any other individual for wrongful death. You cannot go to jail over a wrongful death suit, you can only be required to pay damages to the victim's estate/family/close friends. Wrongful death only requires a civil conviction which means that you simply need to be found liable by one judge, or by the majority of a jury. Note that like OJ, one person can be sued for both Wrongful Death and for Murder. Also note that most doctors do not have the intent or recklessness manifesting extreme indifference required to be guilty of murder, but may be liable for wrongful death if their jurisdiction requires a lesser culpability standard such as negligence. Hey, maybe I'll pass this Criminal Law class yet! Notice: IAAAL (I am almost a lawyer)

"tyranny of the masses"?

[game kid]

Perhaps more like the tyranny of the conservative-supported Parent's Television Council [washingtonpost.com], which makes between 21-99% of complaints against TV indecency. [cnsnews.com]

I do agree with their unsuccessful "'a la carte' programming option" plan though; hopefully soon I won't have to pay for a bunch of channels I don't need.

Re:Thank You Right Wing Loonies

[DarkFencer]

The chairman of the FCC was appointed by Bill Clinton

Michael Powell (son of Colin Powell) was appointed as chairman by GW Bush in his first term, though he was made a commisioner of the FCC (but not chariman) by Clinton.

Satellite radio

[sdo1]

And stern's switching to XM anyway, which just shows that the problem isn't the cursing, it's using a public resource to broadcast your curses.

Make sure the FCC knows you want them to keep their grubby paws of satellite radio. The religious right [townhall.com] are coming after satellite radio as well.

And it gets worse. The terresterial broadcasters are now saying [billboardr...onitor.com] that they won't be able to compete against satellite unless the FCC levies the same restrictions against satellite that they do on regular radio.

I'm a very happy XM subscriber and I'd hate to think that they might get sucked into this rediculous quagmire as well.

-S

Re:Write your congressperson.

[Idarubicin]

Even methamphetamines help the pharmaceutical companies. Who do you think makes methadone?

Strictly speaking, methadone and methamphetamines aren't usually related. Methadone is used in the treatment of heroin addiction. If you're looking for a (at least tenuous) link between big pharma and crystal meth, methamphetamines are tradiationally made from over-the-counter cold medications containing (pseudo)ephedrine hydrochloride.

So much for freedom of speech

[Handbrewer]

Ah, America - Home of the puritans.

In Denmark we can say anything we want on TV, and we do - i hear the word 'fuck' & 'shit' daily when i watch 'Boogie' a music show for young ppl that runs around 4-6pm. Primettime for the kids to learn new words :).

And travelling around europe, this is how it works most places, maybe perhaps with the exception of Germany (i wouldent have understood it if they used profanity anyways)

I thought puritans died out with the last victorians - but they just sailed to America it seems, heh.

But seriously, cant you sue the FCC for violating the freedom of speech? It would seem obvious that they are enforcing censorship.

Re:It's the FCC!

[sgant]

This isn't where the fine is levied...it's aimed at the guy that says the dreaded words over the airwaves. The broadcast corporation get's fined, sure, but the DJ or "on air talent" or whatever you want to call them is also hit with a $500,000 fine. These people, unless your Stern or Limbaugh, don't have that kind of dough. And the fine is per incident. AND the corporations aren't going to let the guy back on the air until he pays the fine...so he's screwed and the FCC and the religious right are all happy because they've "cleaned up the airwaves".

Re:Yes indeed...

[philkerr]

I think you are mistaken when it comes to bleeping this word, I've never seen this done and I'm British.

For non-US citizens we are somewhat shocked that a country that prides itself on free-speech can allow its television to be so watered down.

What the parent says about beeping is generally true, before 9:00pm all swear words on UK telly are beeped out, often with the mouth pixelated, but afterwards virtually anything goes.

For US TV virtually any form of gun-related violence is fine, but utter one swear word or show any form of sexual behaviour..... FCC gives the smack-down.

It's rather sad that often the US made films we see over hear are the censored versions, it's strange to hear actors shout 'you mummy forgetor', especially when you've seen the original film :)

Re:Nothing really new.

[Waffle Iron]

His sentence is probably that long because arson in general has heavy penalties. Those penalties are in force because many times arson results in deaths of firefighters and/or innocent victims caught in the fire.

If he wanted to destroy some SUVs, he would have been smarter to use a method that didn't involve fire.

Re:So much for freedom of speech

[Handbrewer]

Thats civilised in my book. If you have any reason to ban profanity, nudity and other stuff from TV, please paste links to the research reports indicating it harms anyone. Otherwise, f'ck off.

The legal age of drinking in Denmark is 16, we got less alcoholics than restricted countries such as Sweden and Norway, that has state owned monopolies on alcohol.
We got less teen pregnancies eventhough we educate people in sex from 6th grade, show them titties on TV etc.etc. Seems real education works better than advocating abstine
And we got one of the lowest crime rates in the world, and the country in the world where people feel the safest. Why? We must be doing SOMETHING CIVILISED that works.

Re:It's the FCC!

[goon america]

Here are some more comprehensive numbers, courtesy yahoo finance [yahoo.com]

Market Capitalization by Industry:
Broadcasting & Cable TV: $503B
Motion Pictures: $24B

Oil & Gas Integrated: $1.6T
Oil & Gas Operations: $437B
Oil Well Services & Equipment: $253B
Natural Gas Utilities: $155B
Electric Utilities: $659B

Re:It's the FCC!

[Aeron65432]

The Union Carbide Bhopal Incident was #1. a PRIVATE company #2. a CHEMICAL company As opposed to GOVERNMENT-RUN NUCLEAR plants.

Fight back!

[speakspeak]

My organization is mobilizing people to speak up and fight back. We have two current actions -- those of you who are pissed off, well, do something about it.

First, you can write your Senator and ask them to vote against the Broadcast Indecency Enforcement Act. (http://speakspeak.org/senators/ [speakspeak.org])

Then, you can help put a stop to the Parents Television Council's hijacking of the complaint process. (Remember the PTC? They're responsible for 99.9% of FCC complaints? Ring a bell?)

Anyway, they're currently pushing for the maximum fine against CBS and all of its affiliates as punishment for the CSI episode that ran on 2/17. We're fighting back with a letter explaining why the episode was not indecent. http://speakspeak.org/letter/ [speakspeak.org]

The FCC is required to evaluate indecency complaints using "contemporary community standards." If the only community they hear from is the PTC, we're all screwed.

So, fight back. Please.

Re:Benjamins

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break, while I think the level of fines for "indecency" are ridulicious pulling out a 25 year old fine for TMI and comparing it to today is just as bad.

After adjusting for inflation the TMI fine is something like $400,000. Still less than the Howard Stern / Clear Channel fine but you might want to compare it to other government fines in its era since you like to compare "apples to apples."

In addition, it was not Howard Stern who was fined, it was Clear Channel Communications, the company who ran his broadcasts that was fined. So I believe it was a whole company that was fined... not just him. And let us not forget that Clear Channel is the biggest player in its' segment of the entertainment industry.

Finally, you cannot compare "apples to apples" the energy and entertainment industry since the energy industry is still guaranteed a certain percentage of profit by most, if not all, state public utitility commisions . The entertainment industry has no such guarantee of profit by any state regulatory agency.

Re:It's the FCC!

[pla]

How is this 5+ Insightful? It's 5+ "preaching what Slashdot wants to hear" but that doesn't make it factually sound.

As opposed to the classic "Let's attack a highly-rated post on a controversial topic and hope the few mods who strongly disagree with it will toss me a few points"?

Difference here, I gave accurate information as corroborated in multiple locations. As far as I can tell, you completely made yours up.


A quick google * yielded fines of $1.5 million, and $80 million in medical settlements. A tad bit more than $150,000, don't you think?

If you could support it, yes. Instead, you posted a registration-required link and mentioned Google.

But, lest I commit the same erro myself, here you go [tmia.com]:

The plant came within 30 minutes of a full meltdown. The reactor vessel was destroyed, and large amounts of unmonitored radiation was released directly into the community.

Or how about a choice line from the PA governor's address on the problem?

The company has informed us that from about 11 a.m. until about 1:30 p.m., Three-Mile Island discharged into the air, steam that contained detectable amounts of radiation.

And what did they end up paying in fines?

On October 25, 1979, the NRC issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) to Met Ed for causing the accident. The Commission also recommended the maximum fine, $155,000, permitted under law Met Ed denied all NRC charges, but agreed to pay the NRC fine on December 15, 1979.

and $80 million in medical settlements.

"Liability" for damages does not equal "fines". I can find no source for that $80M claim, but even if I could, it wouldn't much matter, since it doesn't fall into the category of "punitive" actions. The same holds true for...

And of course, lets not take into account any new laws or regulations in the past 20 years.

Just because it might end up bothering those it directly affects, new laws do not directly punish someone, they merely (attempt to) improve the overall situation, for all players.