Comments of TechFreedom, Center for Democracy & Technology, Public Knowledge, & Electronic Frontier Foundation
on
Broadcast Indecency Policy GN Docket No. 13-86
Our organizations often differ significantly on many important questions facing the FCC. But we joined together in late 2011 in an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down once and for all the FCC’s indecency regulations as a relic of a bygone era when Americans had few choices for video programming, and little control over the content they allowed into their homes. Those days have passed. Broadcasting is no longer the cultural force it once was—or an “intruder in the home.” While the government’s efforts to censor the content of broadcast speakers have always been constitutionally suspect, they were understandable given the technology and marketplace of the day. But now, restricting the First Amendment rights of broadcast speakers is neither sound policy nor constitutionally defensible.