CDT Files Supreme Court Brief In Support of Free Speech on Broadcast

Today CDT and the Progress & Freedom Foundation jointly filed a “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Supreme Court against the FCC’s regulation of “fleeting expletives,” arguing that the Commission’s new policy of censoring one-off curse words violates both the Constitution and administrative law. CDT also called into question the FCC’s overall authority to regulate speech on broadcast, noting that dramatic changes in media and technology over the past 30 years no longer make broadcast a “unique” medium deserving less than full First Amendment protection. The brief also argues that the convergence of broadcast with the Internet and other new media, and the rise of technological tools that allow families to control what media content enters the home, eliminates the need for continued government regulation of broadcast.