Government Files Reply Brief in Indecency Challenge

The Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice defended the FCC's indecency enforcement policy and branded the broadcaster and creative community challenge to its enforcement regime as an "audacious attempt" to overturn Congress' judgment that kids should be protected from indecent material "on the public airwaves." That came in a reply brief from the Solicitor General to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Obama Administration and the FCC asking the court to reverse lower court decisions smacking down the FCC's indecency enforcement policy. The Solicitor General's office customarily handles Supreme Court appeals of agency decisions. The government says that if the court overturned the FCC's indecency enforcement authority, anything on cable or the Internet could show up on broadcasting in the middle of the day, and would give an absence of indecency regulation.