Supreme Court rules on indecent speech

The Supreme Court ruled that federal regulators have the authority to clamp down on the broadcast TV networks that air isolated cases of profanity, known as "fleeting expletives."

This gives the Federal Communications Commission the authority to fine broadcast networks for allowing bad language.



The high court refused to decide whether the commission's policy violates the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, only the agency's enforcement power

For now, what this boils down to is that the FCC is allowed to fine networks for using "fleeting expletives," even though it may eventually be prevented from doing so because of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

In fact, the high court ordered the free-speech aspect to be reviewed again by a federal appeals court.

We predict that in the end there will be no real change.

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