OVERNIGHT TECH: Group asks Supreme Court to strike down FCC's indecency policy
THE LEDE: Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm, filed a brief on Thursday asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency policy as unconstitutionally vague.
The Supreme Court already ruled in the case, upholding the FCC’s fine on Fox for airing expletives during the Billboard Music Awards in 2002 and 2003. But the court only addressed whether the FCC’s fine was arbitrary, and sent the case back to a lower court to determine the policy’s constitutionality. That lower court struck down the FCC’s policy as violating the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has agreed to re-hear the case.
“The FCC’s indecency findings at issue in this case relied on application of an unconstitutionally vague, context-based policy,” the brief argues.
The firm filed the brief on behalf of its clients, the Center for Creative Voices in Media and the Future of Music Coalition.