On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:54:41 -0800, Gregory Gadow <techbear@serv.net>
wrote:

Congress has the authority to regulate interstate commerce (Article I,
Section 8, clause 3.) The Courts have long recognized that
telecommunications fall under this commerce clause (for various and
sundry reasons, this includes even strictly local broadcasts that are
not interstate.) As such, Congress has a constitutional right to
regulate telecommunications. Thus, laws such as the Telecommunications
Act and others.

Regulating interstate commerce... uh... I doubt the founding fathers
had conceived of TV and radio when they wrote this. Ut sounds like a
***** "just in case" clause which congress and the FCC have used
and abused to COMPLETELY overstepped their boundries.

the Federal Communications Commission. Their job is to create and
enforce a set of standards that comply with the laws passed by
Congress. That

So it's congress' fault and who are a corrupt institution, gotcha.

obcenity is banned from US airwaves is a law duly passed by both
houses of Congress under their constitutional authority and signed by
the

I seriously doubt their authority. It seems to me they're abusing the
interstate commerce regulation clause. Doesn't the implication of
interstate also mean that local channels can broadcast whatever they
want?

president (many decades ago, I point out.) Whether the televised flash
of Janet Jackson's tit or the "coarse language" on the Movie of the
Week might or might not be considered obscene is an *application* of
that law, which falls squarely in the constitutional authority of the
executive branch and which, in this case, has been delegated by
Congress to an executive department created specifically to apply that
law (among others.)

Here endeth the civics lesson :-P

I appreciate it, thanks Gregory. But I don't understand how you can
claim constitutionality when as far as I can tell they're simply
abusing a paragraph that was invented 175 years before TV and a
hundred years before radio to govern interstate import/export.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:58:22 GMT, georgann <chenault@mindspring.com>
wrote:

That's pretty fantastic alright. There's nothing in the constitution about
media and TV and you can always watch the video or DVD if you're so
determined.

ROFL! You neocons sure are liberal in some respects. Specifically,
with the TRUTH and your relationship to LAWS. If they don't suit you,
you change their meaning or ignore them alltogether. I guess you CAN
learn things from the HOLY BABBLE afterall.

georgann <chenault@mindspring.com> wrote:

There's nothing in the constitution about media and TV

A document written before a technology was invented makes no mention of that
technology? Shocking! The Constitution does call for protection of speech,
however, and that protection applies to any medium of communication you care
to discuss.

and you can always watch the video or DVD if you're so determined.

You can always turn off the TV if a program offends you. That way, you've
exercised your freedom of choice without forcing your beliefs onto the rest of
the country.