Court to Hear Broadcast Indecency Case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court in New York will hear arguments Wednesday over whether the government's decisions on what constitutes indecent speech violates the First Amendment rights of broadcasters.

Lawyers and constitutional experts say the case stands a chance of eventually making it to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first time that a broadcast indecency dispute has gone that far in nearly three decades.

Broadcasters will argue that the Federal Communications Commission has instituted a new, inconsistent and unconstitutional enforcement regime for how it decides whether profanities uttered on broadcast stations are permissible.

The FCC will argue that it has acted within its statutory authority, and that existing community standards for broadcasting "simply do not permit entertainers gratuitously to utter the F-word and the S-word" in awards shows broadcast when children might be watching.

Details here from the AP.