FCC Fights To Maintain Indecency Policy

GovTechGuy writes "The FCC filed Thursday to appeal a recent court decision that struck down its policy of fining broadcasters for profanity or nudity shown on live television. The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."

Re:Forget the FCC

[MickyTheIdiot]

We're living in the era of no responsibility in this country. At work everything is the fault of the corporation you're working for (convenient since a paper entity can't go to jail). At home it's the media's fault, the teacher's fault, the government's fault depending on the day of the week. No one is at fault for anything right now in the U.S.

Re:Fucking backwards

[cappp]

One of my biggest culture-shocks was waking up to UK morning TV and being confronted by a guy with his trousers around his ankles, his balls the subject of the morning discussion. It's covered in this BBC story [bbc.co.uk] but the long and short of it is that it was a testicular awareness drive in the model of previously successful breast cancer awareness programs.It was the kind of early morning suprise that lets you skip your morning coffee and, more importantly, was one of the first times I've felt like television actually treated me like a thinking adult. Actually learned a few things that morning too. There's something to be said for the value of broadcasters approaching nudity, the body, and all that with a degree of maturity - its certainly one of the first steps towards a cultural shift.

Re:Forget the FCC

[localman57]

We were watching the Super Bowl with our kids. And out popped Janet's nipple. Live, and unexpected. Parents who wanted to be "responsible" in preventing their children from seeing such things were caught totally by surprise. I think my kids will be OK, but it kinda puts a dent in that argument. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to keep kids from watching certain channels, or all channels at certain times. Put whatever you want on then...

Re:Hmmm

[BarryJacobsen]

What search engine are you using where anywhere in the top 10 pages of results for "Horses" are there horses mating with humans? Google with Safe Search disabled doesn't even have anything like that.

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's call a spade a spade here. The elite at the top of the pyramid don't give damn about "indecency". That's only a smokescreen for the real objective: money. Their visions are not of a perfect Mr. Rogers world, as they would like you to believe -- their visions are dollar signs and vast fortunes.

The more laws, the more money it costs to run them all. Conformity isn't the end goal here, but merely a means to more money. Power isn't the end goal either, but merely an asset that can be leveraged for more control over the cash flow.

At the top of the pyramid, the more money passing through your hands, the better positioned you are to exploit that cash flow for personal gain. That's what these "indecency" laws are really about, and for that matter, most everything government does.

Re:Forget the FCC

[DrgnDancer]

Did you really *see* Janet's nipple? Really? I was watching, I saw a sudden movement from Justin Timberlake, some clothing pull away, and what may or make not have been a flash of jewelry. The actual nipple was on screen for less than 3 seconds, on a pulled away shot, and covered in a very large piece of jewelry. So far as I remember it took an hour or more for there to be verification that there actually *was* a nipple in the shot, after someone isolated the 30-40 frames where it was visible and zoomed in on it.

So essentially you're saying that kids can be mentally damaged but a second or two of viewing something that may or may not from the actual visual evidence on screen have been partial nudity. Regardless, the network (who got fined for indecency) had nothing to do with the plan that Justin and Janet came up with to get themselves some publicity. So even the most stringent fining system in the world would not have prevented the occurrence, because the people who were fined were not the people who planned and executed the stunt (and Justin and Janet couldn't have ever been fined because they're under no obligation to the TV station or the public to act a certain way just because cameras happen to be on them. Their contract is with the NFL).

Re:I don't know anyone like that...

[xquercus]

The US has lost sight of the value of that since unlike the rest of the modern world, no country has tried to invade us in almost 200 years come ~2013 (when the British invaded the US in the War of 1812).

While it didn't involve foreign troops operating freely within the Continental United States its very existence was at stake during WWII. Japan fully intended and tried to occupy the United States. There was combat in Hawaii and Alaska [wikipedia.org]. Japanese subs operated freely along the West Coast and sunk a number of US, Canadian and Mexican vessels. Japanese built incendiary devices [wikipedia.org] lit forest fires across the West. Naval action by Germany could be seen from the shores on the East Coast as well.

Re:I don't know anyone like that...

[ElectricTurtle]

While I agree, to an extent, with what your are saying, your historical background leaves something to be desired. 1812 was not the last invasion of the territory of the US. While an argument could be made that America invaded Mexico first (if you believe the Mexican territorial claim was valid over the American territorial claim), President Polk's message to Congress on May 11, 1846 stated that “Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil.”

Further, during the Second World War the Japanese invaded several US holdings and territories, including but not limited to Alaska, Guam, the Philippines, etc. And they clearly would have invaded Hawaii if they could. So, in reality the US has not been invaded since 1941-44.

Good.

[npsimons]

The government has no business restricting speech, even if it weren't written into our consitution. To all those who cry "think of the children", let's just list a few glaring problems with that argument, any one of which would invalidate it:

• There are more than children living in this country.
• Since when are images of the human body and messages of love harmful? "Sin" is a harmful, destructive idea that should be abolished.
• Children will find out about these things sooner or later. Parents: if you have a problem with this, take responsibility and teach them so they will be prepared. Don't have time? Don't have kids.
• Children grow up. How are they going to handle things as adults if they've never encountered them before? You think there's some magic switch that happens when they turn 18? Sure, you shouldn't just bombard them from the get go, but cutting them off completely will be worse in the long run.

I recently watched the "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" episode on sex/virginity and it's really obvious but needs to be restated: ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION DOESN'T FUCKING WORK. Get a clue and get a grip: sex is not bad, and people (including children) should not be punished for being curious or having sexual impulses. Factual, scientific, rational education is the answer.

Re:Le sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehem... Stalin had millions of Christians killed because they refused to convert to Atheism.
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union#Anti-religious_campaign_1921-1928

Re:Le sigh

[gfreeman]

Can you name one act of terror in the past 20 years that had nothing to do with religion? I know I can't.

Explain Justin Beiber.

Re:Le sigh

[astar]

As I said, no legal obstacle. Really. I live in Oregon. Mostly public nudity here is used as an attention driver for some sort of political demonstration. No cop problems. Not even any public outrage problems. There are some odd circumstances where people feel obliged to criminalize public nudity in particular locations in particular cities, but really, we just do not seem to be inclined to get around to making a big thing out of this.

It happens that if you are severely depressed, for some reason, an identifying symptom is standing in your window and exposing yourself to little kids. I have read of it happening in this state and people do not like it, but it is not like it is illegal.

Hmm, I used to live in a small town in Washington. Some nude drunk was wandering up and down the middle of main street in the middle of the night. The local cops wanted to arrest him but could not. Nudity was not illegal and there was no motor vehicle involved.

I have not noticed any big collapses of the local social fabric.

A cite is sometime useful: try this

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009294723_webnudeman03m.html [nwsource.com]

Kind of an overview