From: owner-ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Farber
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 7:14 PM
To: Ip
Subject: [IP] House Passes Bill to Raise Indecency
------ Forwarded Message
From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:48:10 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: David Isenberg <isen@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: House Passes Bill to Raise Indecency
<snip>
>>On one of the panels a speaker said that Supreme Court had "red lined" the principle that the FCC trumped the first amendment. I tried to look up the term but couldn't find a definition (I presume that all words are in legalese and not English). Is it similar to Black Letter Law -- something that is just assumed without there being a doubt?<<
Bob,
What Powell was talking about was a case from the ‘60s known as the “Red Lion” case. (One of the parties was “Red Lion Broadcasting”). That case basically held that the degree of 1st Amendment protection applicable to a given medium depended on the technical and other characteristics of the medium. Over-the-air broadcasting is traditionally subject to less 1st Amendment protection because of (a) its pervasiveness and (b) the supposedly limited amount of spectrum available, imposing greater “public interest” obligations on those who hold it.
We can (and probably should) debate the continuing validity of this line of cases, but I think Powell is correct that the “law” of decency applicable to unencrypted, free, over-the-air broadcasting is different from that which applies to cable, or print, or the ‘net, or whatever.
Chris S.
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