Speaking of “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”

I just was pointed to this rather enlightening article courtesy of Chuck Shepherd at News of the Weird.

FCC Censorship: Bush's Obscene Fines
By David Swanson, February 24, 2005, Rolling Stone

When the Federal Communications Commission fined Clear Channel Communications $27,500 last year for each of eighteen incidents of "indecent material" spouted by shock jock Howard Stern, it sure seemed like a lot of money. But in retrospect those fines look like chump change. On February 16th, the Bush administration won House approval for a bill that would raise the maximum FCC fine to $500,000 per violation. Under the new measure, Clear Channel -- and Stern himself -- could each have been fined a total of $9 million.

"Free expression and First Amendment rights are the real target of this legislation," declared Rep. Bernie Sanders (Ind-Vt.) during the debate over the bill. "This is not what America is about."

A review of fines levied by other federal agencies suggests that the government may be taking swear words a bit too seriously. If the bill passes the Senate, Bono saying "fucking brilliant" on the air would carry the exact same penalty as illegally testing pesticides on human subjects. And for the price of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps at two nuclear reactors. (Actually, you might be able to afford four "nuke malfunctions": The biggest fine levied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year was only $60,000.)

If Bush has his way, Howard Stern may soon have a tough choice to make: Tell a sex joke on the air, or dump toxic waste in New York's drinking water while willfully placing an employee at risk of injury or death? No wonder the foul-mouthed host is moving to satellite radio, which falls outside the authority of the FCC.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Our clownish legislators seem to be falling over each other to demonstrate to their constituency of biblebanging bigots how moral they are. Congress tried to outdo each other to raise these fines to outlandish levels. Michael Powell’s FCC refuses to accurately define what the FCC will find obscene; presumably the FCC will know it when they see or hear it. Broadcasters are left hanging.

It reminds me of our oh-so-very effective drug laws. We lock up non-violent offenders essentially forever because Congress wanted to show how tough they were on drugs. The Libertarian PJ O’Rourke had it right. We really do have a “Parliament of Whores.”