IT takes re-entry into a seemingly different life to read that there is still out there something called an Indecency Code. It lives, sort of, and is administered by the Federal Communications Commission. What brought on a reminder that such a code existed was last week’s movement by television networks to discipline the FCC. Their reaction was to a fine handed down against 111 television stations for running an episode of a show called Without a Trace, which the commission found to be indecent in that it “depicts a teen orgy as well as a teenage girl straddling and apparently engaging in intercourse with one boy while two others kissed her breast.”
The plaintiffs are arguing a number of things, salient among them that the victimization by the FCC impinges on rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. There are collateral complaints, including the inconsistency of the FCC’s actions, which introduces arbitrariness, injustice, and other unpleasant things.
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