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Full-Text Articles in Communications Law
The "Strong Medicine" Of The Overbreadth Doctrine: When Statutory Exceptions Are No More Than A Placebo, Christopher A. Pierce
The "Strong Medicine" Of The Overbreadth Doctrine: When Statutory Exceptions Are No More Than A Placebo, Christopher A. Pierce
Federal Communications Law Journal
In United States v. Stevens, the United States Supreme Court invalidated a federal statute criminalizing the interstate sale and distribution of depictions of animal cruelty on First Amendment grounds. While Stevens demonstrates the Court's reluctance to create a new category of speech outside of First Amendment protection, Stevens also stands for the proposition that borrowing the exceptions clause from the Court's obscenity standard will not adequately protect a statute from invalidation as overbroad. This Note discusses the use of the obscenity standard's exceptions clause in nonobscenity statutes and the Court's treatment of the exceptions clause in Stevens. This Note concludes …
From One [Expletive] Policy To The Next: The Fcc's Regulation Of "Fleeting Expletives" And The Supreme Court's Response, Brandon J. Almas
From One [Expletive] Policy To The Next: The Fcc's Regulation Of "Fleeting Expletives" And The Supreme Court's Response, Brandon J. Almas
Federal Communications Law Journal
After the broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, during which the lead singer from U2 uttered an expletive on national television, the FCC revisited its prior policy on the use of expletives on the airwaves and declared, for the first time, that "fleeting expletives" are offensive according to community standards and are therefore finable. In a lawsuit filed in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Fox Television Stations, Inc. along with a number of other broadcasters argued that the FCC's new policy was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act and unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The Second …
Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And The Fcc's New Fleeting Expletive Policy, Jerome A. Barron
Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And The Fcc's New Fleeting Expletive Policy, Jerome A. Barron
Federal Communications Law Journal
This Article focuses on the Supreme Court's decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 1800 (2009). In that case, the Supreme Court upheld an important change in the FCC indecency regulation. In the past, the FCC's policy had been that the broadcast of a single expletive did not violate FCC indecency policy. In order for such fleeting expletives to be actionable, the FCC required that they had to be repetitive and gratuitous. But in 2004, in response to the use of some expletives by entertainers during the Golden Globe Awards, the FCC changed its policy and …
Performing Art: National Endowment For The Arts V. Finley, Randall P. Bezanson
Performing Art: National Endowment For The Arts V. Finley, Randall P. Bezanson
Federal Communications Law Journal
In this modified version of a chapter in his forthcoming book, ART AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2008-09), Professor Bezanson begins to probe the nature of art and its relation to the first amendment free speech guarantee. The essay uses the Finley v. NEA case, and specifically its discussion of Finley's performance art, to critique the Supreme Court's very approach to the Finley case, and to view the issues from the perspective of art, artistic freedom, and the Supreme Court's role in fashioning constitutional protection for art as art, and not simply as cognitive speech.
Reassessing Turner And Litigating The Must-Carry Law Beyond A Facial Challenge, R. Matthew Warner
Reassessing Turner And Litigating The Must-Carry Law Beyond A Facial Challenge, R. Matthew Warner
Federal Communications Law Journal
In recent decades, the must-carry rules have had a troubled constitutional history. After two sets of rules were struck down by the D.C. Circuit for violating the First Amendment rights of both cable programmers and operators, Congress revised the must-carry rules in the 1992 Cable Act. In 1997, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, determined that the congressional must-carry law was facially constitutional. However, does the Turner II decision preclude further First Amendment challenges to the must-carry law? This Note argues that the answer is no and that the time is drawing near for new challenges.