Archive for the ‘FCC’ tag
Bad words
I usually pretty strict about the use of language on my blog. But the sad news about the death of the great comedian George Carlin are good reason to break, temporarily, this rule. Here is what George Carlin had to say about those seven words we are not allowed to say on TV
May he rest in peace.
The FCC, for example
The FCC is a regular target here and its provides many examples for how bad the regulatory monster in DC has become. Reason magazine, in its July print edition has a very good article which demonstrate, through the example of the FCC, the fundamental problems with the regulatory system we created:
The commission is corrupt. I don’t just mean the sort of corruption where the chairman loosens his tie, puts his feet up on his desk, and doles out favors to the companies that scratched the right backs—though you’ll find plenty of that in the commission’s history. Even when the body is being relatively transparent and above-board, it is beholden to politically connected lobbies. The FCC controls an important economic resource. Naturally, important economic interests try their best to influence its decisions.
The most flagrant example of this might be the welcome the commission gave to FM radio. The technology was an enormous leap forward: It allowed stations to broadcast without static, and it allowed more signals to coexist on the spectrum. It also worried RCA, which was investing heavily in the development of television; the company fretted that consumers might not pay for both a new FM radio and a new TV set. RCA didn’t control the patent on FM, so it pressured the FCC to favor the other technology. The regulators obliged, and a series of roadblocks appeared in FM’s path. The most destructive decision came in 1944, when the commissioners suddenly reassigned the FM broadcasters’ portion of the ether to television, instantly rendering every FM receiver obsolete.
[...]
The commission is sanctimonious. For seven decades, the nation’s scolds and censors have used the FCC as a tool to shape the sounds and images allowed on the airwaves. In 1952, for example, then-commissioner Paul Walker announced with satisfaction that his agency had “surveyed the programming of some of the television stations in operation, and found that some of them had reported no time devoted to broadcasts of a religious nature. We felt in view of this fact that regular renewal of their licenses would not be in the public interest.” The stations quickly revised their schedules, and the commission agreed to renew their licenses after all.
[...]
The commission is technocratic. The next time someone tells you central planning is dead, remind him that there is an arm of the federal government that decides in advance how different chunks of the electromagnetic spectrum will be used, and that it also reserves the right to determine which entities will be allowed to use it. It’s true the commission has adopted several market “mechanisms” in the last few decades: FCC-approved broadcasters now have the right to sell their licenses to other FCC-approved broadcasters, and spectrum is usually distributed by auction rather than pure fiat. But even an auction can be bent to the planners’ will.
And if we talking about the FCC I can only repeat my recommendation about the book: Law and Disorder in Cyberspace: Abolish the FCC and Let Common Law Rule the Telecosm.
The ACLU fight against Civil Liberties
This is another example why I am not, and will not, be a member of the ACLU. Ownership and allowing consumers to decide for themselves, by making purchasing decisions, is one human right the ACLU choose not to protect for political reasons. Inviting the FCC to regulate more than it does already is invitation for more abuses of the Freedom of Speech, but this apparently doesn’t concern the ACLU.
The Freedom of speech and the Freedom of Association are both part of the civil liberties the ACLU was supposed to protect. They are also rights protected by the constitution. But apparently the ACLU has very selective approach to civil liberties protection, and that disqualify its integrity altogether.
Decent example
I’m having an interesting discussion with Elad about what constitute “Free” and the dangers of regulating virtues for the “public good”. I was looking for a relevant example, and the story about the FCC appeal to the supreme court about previous ruling regarding the enforcement of the indecency act is a perfect match. I wrote about the FCC transformation from coordinator of the airwaves to the morality police. The logic is simple - once the public fund an activity, or resource such as the airwaves, it has a valid claim to be consultant about the use done with it. In other words, if one’s money fund the airwaves she has the right to object to the way her money is being used. And on this ground, using massive help of social conservative and evangelical group demonstrating their concern about the content that is being delivered on the airwaves, the FCC assume the role of decency police.
One can see the similarities to other countries that feel obligated to protect the decency of their citizens, or start wonder when the FCC will make an attempt to regulate political speech. The sad thing is that in the current regulatory climate nobody even hope to repeal the decency act, just to scale it down:
Fox executives said last week that a ruling by the Supreme Court over so-called "fleeting profanities" could "change the future of live television." That sentiment echoed throughout the TV industry as entertainment companies tried to make sense of the latest whipsaw ruling in the government’s effort to crack down on vulgar speech on public airwaves.
Last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the FCC’s appeal of a lower-court ruling that the commission’s fleeting-profanity policy was insufficiently justified, arbitrary and capricious. The court will likely hear the case in the fall, which means that the FCC’s profanity-enforcement regime remains in limbo until then. Depending on how broadly the Supreme Court rules on the case, it will either go a long way toward cleaning up the FCC’s confusing indecency rules or just tidy up a small corner of the problem.
From here and from there - 11
Today’s links have no connecting theme aside from the fact that I found them worth reading, or watching.
The first link is to a debate about religious, atheism and moral. The debate was between Dinesh D’Souza, which I’m developing great dislike to, and Michael Shermer:
In this debate on what are arguably two of the most important questions in the culture wars today — Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? and Can you be Good without God? — the conservative Christian author and cultural scholar Dinesh D’Souza and the libertarian skeptic writer and social scientist Michael Shermer, square off to resolve these and related issues, such as the relationship between science and religion and the nature and existence of God. This event was one of the liveliest ever hosted by the Skeptics Society at Caltech, mixing science, religion, politics, and culture.
The FCC, which its roll should had been - at most, a coordinator of technical use of airways, become the moral police. This government agency, in the name of protecting our “children”, not only fail to protect our human rights but rather become a major threat for at least one of them:
Despite recent setbacks in court, the Federal Communications Commission late Friday threw the indecency book at 51 ABC TV stations—citing them for a February 2003 episode of NYPD Blue that showed portions of a naked woman’s derrière.
"Our action today should serve as a reminder to all broadcasters that Congress and American families continue to be concerned about protecting children from harmful material and that the FCC will enforce the laws of the land vigilantly," FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate told the press after the agency made the announcement.
The last link is the chilling 2001 Emmy award documentary - Welcome to North Korea:
This film, shot mostly covertly, shows the irony of a regime where 20 million people lived in poverty, some on the brink of starvation, while former dictator Kim II Sung built extravagant monuments to reflect his power. He fostered a grotesque personality cult, which his son and successor Kim Jong Il perpetuates. All around the capital, Pyongyang, an endless stream of propaganda glorifies the leaders. Monuments and museums pay homage to them, but they are strangely empty.