Yesterday, several think tanks and scholars filed an amicus brief in FCC v. Fox, the indecency case before the Supreme Court. This case has a long history, and grows partly out of Paris Hilton’s use of bad words on live TV. The case is before the Supreme Court for a second time.
Some scholars affiliated with the Yale Information Society, the think tank New America Foundation, and Professor Monroe Price filed an amicus brief to remind the court that the case is limited to indecency regulations, rather than concerning broader spectrum policy issues. In the short-hand of Supreme Court precedents, only Pacifica is at issue, not Red Lion, NBC v. US, CBS v. FCC, and so on.
The brief can be found here. Thanks to Nick Bramble at Yale for taking the lead on this brief. We have consistently reminded the Court of this point; I drafted and filed an amicus brief making this argument to the Supreme Court the first time this case reached the Court, in 2008.
Marvin Ammori 