Sunday December 05, 2004

Selective Memory

FCC Chairman Michael Powell gets all pious in the New York Times about the commission’s recent crackdowns on indecency:

The F.C.C.’s job of regulating indecent content on the airwaves is not optional; it has been required ever since Congress first made the broadcast of obscene, indecent and profane material illegal more than 70 years ago.

Of course, the rest of the Communications Act of 1934 — including the parts about, you know, allocating spectrum with a view to the public interest — is entirely optional. This is standard conservative pathology: regulating content, but never money.

(via Censoround.)