"FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.: Awaiting the Next Act," Cato Supreme Court Review

This term the U.S. Supreme Court considered the validity of the Federal Communications Commission’s policies prohibiting broadcast indecency for the first time in 30 years. In its only previous decision on the broadcast indecency restrictions, the Court in 1978 narrowly upheld an FCC reprimand issued to Pacifica Radio for its broadcast of the George Carlin monologue ‘‘Filthy Words,’’ more popularly known as ‘‘the seven dirty words.’’ The Pacifica decision also upheld the Commission’s general definition of indecency. In the intervening years, however, the FCC consciously followed a restrained enforcement policy.

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