The FCC Makes Its Indecency Case at the Supreme Court, But Has the Court Already Shown Its Cards?

The Federal Communications Commission filed its brief at the Supreme Court defending its actions against Fox and ABC programming it found to be indecent.

In the case of Fox, the alleged indecency was celebrity expletives uttered during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards, while ABC was fined for rear nudity shown during an episode of NYPD Blue. The fact that the Court is reviewing such disparate forms of indecency (fleeting expletives during live programming versus nudity during scripted programming) increases the likelihood of a broader ruling by the Court regarding indecency policy, as opposed to a decision limited to the very specific facts of these two cases.