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SRES 283 ATS

Affirming the need to protect children in the United States from indecent programming.

December 9, 2003

Mr. SESSIONS (for himself, Mr. SHELBY, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. NICKLES, Mr. BUNNING, Mr. TALENT, Mr. CHAMBLISS, Mr. CRAIG, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr. KYL, and Mr. HOLLINGS) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to

Affirming the need to protect children in the United States from indecent programming.

Whereas millions of people in the United States are increasingly concerned with the patently offensive television and radio programming being sent into their homes;

Whereas millions of families in the United States are particularly concerned with the adverse impact of this programming on children;

Whereas indecent and offensive programming is contributing to a dramatic coarsening of civil society of the United States;

Whereas the Federal Communications Commission is charged with enforcing standards of decency in broadcast media;

Whereas the Federal Communications Commission established a standard defining what constitutes indecency in the declaratory order In the Matter of a Citizen's Complaint Against Pacifica Foundation Station WBAI(FM), 56 F.C.C.2d 94 (1975) (referred to in this Resolution as the `Pacifica order');

Whereas the Federal Communications Commission has not used all of its available authority to impose penalties on broadcasters that air indecent material even when egregious and repeated violations have been found in the cases of WKRK-FM, Detroit, MI, File No. EB-02-IH-0109 (April 3, 2003) and WNEW-FM, New York, New York, EB-02-IH-0685 (September 30, 2003).

Whereas the standard established in the Pacifica order focuses on protecting children from exposure to indecent language;

Whereas the standard established in the Pacifica order was upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978);

Whereas the Enforcement Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission has refused to sanction the airing of indecent language during the broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards, at a time when millions of children were in the potential audience; and

Whereas as of December 2003, an application for review is pending before the Federal Communications Commission, requesting that the full Commission review that decision of the Enforcement Bureau: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--

(1) the Federal Communications Commission should reconsider the Enforcement Bureau's decision in the Matter of Complaints Against Various Broadcast Licensees Regarding Their Airing of the `Golden Globe Awards' Program, File No. EB-03-IH-0110, 2003 FCC LEXIS 5382, (October 3, 2003), in light of the public policy considerations in protecting children from indecent material.

(2) the Federal Communications Commission should return to vigorously and expeditiously enforcing its own United States Supreme Court-approved standard for indecency in broadcast media, as established in the declaratory order In the Matter of a Citizen's Complaint Against Pacifica Foundation Station WBAI(FM), 56 F.C.C.2d 94 (1975);

(3) the Federal Communications Commission should reassert its responsibility as defender of the public interest by undertaking new and serious efforts to sanction broadcast licensees that refuse to adhere to the standard established in that order; and

(4) the Federal Communications Commission should make every reasonable and lawful effort to protect children from the degrading influences of indecent programming.

(5) The Federal Communications Commission should use all of its available authority to protect the public from indecent broadcasts including:

(A) the discretion to impose fines up to a statutory maximum for each separate `utterance' or `material' found to be indecent; and

(B) the initiation of license revocation proceedings for repeated violations of its indecency rules;

(6) The Federal Communications Commission should resolve all indecency complaints expeditiously and should consider reviewing such complaints at the full Commission level; and

(7) The Federal Communications Commission should aggressively investigate and enforce all indecency allegations.

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