The
Supreme Court seemed reluctant yesterday to end the government’s
historic policing of the broadcast airwaves and to strike down the
“indecency” rules that guide primetime TV shows. Broadcasters use the
public airwaves, and the “government can insist on a certain modicum of
decency,” said Justice Antonin Scalia during l arguments on the
constitutionality of a ban on four-letter words and nudity. “All we are
asking for is for a few channels” where parents can be confident their
children will not hear profanity or see sex scenes, said Chief Justice
John G. Roberts Jr. The broadcast industry is urging the justices to
strike down or sharply limit the government’s authority to police the
airwaves. The FCC launched a crackdown on indecency in the last decade.
Several TV networks were hit with heavy fines. Fox was fined for
allowing celebrities, including Cher and U2’s Bono, to utter four-letter
words during live awards programs. ABC was fined for showing a brief
nude scene in an episode of “NYPD Blue.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said
he would not like to see a time when “celebrities and want-to-be
celebrities” had a free speech right to utter profanities on television
and radio. Justice Elena Kagan agreed with the broadcasters that the
rules on indecency seem arbitrary. “It seems no one can use dirty words,
except Steven Spielberg,” she commented. The networks complain the FCC
allowed profanity in such movies as “Saving Private Ryan,” and
full-frontal nudity in “Schindler’s List” when they aired on broadcast
TV, but fined stations for other allegedly “indecent” material.
