View OnLine: part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5
Things just keep getting weirder and weirder. In spite of the fact that I am currently suing Patriot Media in federal court for not fulfilling their responsibilities under federal, state, and local franchise agreement, law. They, like the town government, are apparently so arrogantly confident that no law, including the United States Constitution, can touch them that they are willing to violate more fundamental constitutional rights without any sign of fear or apprehension.
On airing some of my other shows Patriot Media has seen a purpose, and right, to display a "not the views of Patriot media" warning before broadcast. I have seen no other public access program that included this warning. On past shows Patriot Media has censored words like "asshole". Considering that the program is broadcast after midnight, and one would expect Patriot Media has read FCC (and Supreme Court) rules that protect indecent content broadcast after 10:00 p.m., Patriot media has been engaged in less than patriotic conduct by engaging in this discrimination and censorship.
If you saw last night's show, you might have realized that the illegal censorship has escalated to essentially "whiting out" my constitutional right to free speech and expression. The show/segment was titled "do I have to draw you a picture" and it intended to expose some "naked" truths about the meaning of life through a little artistic drawing. by the end of the show you should have seen a picture something like this:
Unfortunately after the "Patriots" got through with it, it broadcast like this:
Even if you personally can see justification for this censorship--regardless of what the Supreme Court says--the fact that the rotten, stinking, lousy cable company didn't broadcast any notice announcing that they deliberately destroyed the substance of the visual portion of the program should be something you can recognized as just plain wrong.
As for the law, it goes something like this:
quote:It is a violation of federal law to broadcast obscene material at anytime. It is also a violation of federal law to broadcast indecent programming during certain hours. Congress has given the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the responsibility for administratively enforcing the law that governs these types of broadcasts. The Commission may revoke a station license impose a monetary forfeiture, or issue a warning, for the broadcast of obscene or indecent material. 3. Obscene Broadcasts Are Prohibited at All Times Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet all three prongs of the Miller test. • An average person applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; • The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and • The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. C. Indecent Broadcast Restrictions 1 SRTV voluntarily follows FCC guidelines for indecency. 2 The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as "language or material that, in context depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities." Indecent programming contains patently offensive sexual or excretory references that do not rise to the level of obscenity. As such, the courts have held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely. It may, however, be restricted in order to avoid broadcast during times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. 3 Consistent with a federal statute and federal court decisions interpreting the indecency statute, the FCC adopt a rule pursuant to which broadcast-both on television and radio-that fit within the indecency definition and that are aired between 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM are subject to indecency enforcement action
For context, TV 25 (the local public access channel I can't even access) broadcast these images every day, all day, last winter. |
