By Robert Garmong
June 22, 2004

Since the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl, there have been
strident demands for a crackdown by a tougher, stricter Federal
Communication Commission. The FCC's various commissioners now call for the
power to regulate cable television, in addition to broadcast media. In June
Congress voted to increase the maximum fine the FCC can impose *tenfold*,
from $27,500 to $275,000. Commissioner Michael Copps has vowed that he will
not be satisfied until "I see us send one or two . . . . cases for license
revocation."

In this headlong rush to expand the government's authority over the media,
no one has paused to consider whether the government should have such
authority in the first place. No one has noticed that the very existence of
the FCC is a flagrant violation of the right to free speech.

Throughout history the norm was tyranny over the mind. Men were allowed to
speak only by government imprimatur, until America's first amendment
established freedom of speech as a central premise of our nation. The first
amendment declares that "Congress shall pass no law . . . . abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press." This language could not be clearer, or
more absolute: no matter who disagrees with you or considers your speech
offensive, the government may not abridge your right to say it.

Free speech is the protection of the rational mind and its literary,
intellectual, and scientific products. It means the absolute right to
express one's views, so long as one does not violate the rights of others.
Free speech means no American should fear the fate of Galileo, persecuted
for daring to assert scientific truths that contradicted the official
Church's doctrines, nor that of Socrates, put to death for offending the
state.

Yet the FCC exists to dictate what can be said on-air. Each year since the
early days of radio, every broadcast station must apply to the FCC for
permission to use the airwaves. In exchange for their licenses, broadcasters
must promise to serve the "public interest." Stations that the FCC regards
as having failed to do so can be fined, or even shut down, at the FCC's sole
discretion.

The putative justification for the FCC's regulation of broadcasters is that
the airwaves are public property. But just as the government does not
own--and so has no legitimate control over--the presses of the New York
Times, so it has no business regulating what may be broadcast over airwaves.
The airwaves, which would be useless without the transmission networks
created by radio and television stations, belong to the individuals and
companies that developed them. Broadcasters should not have to plead to the
authorities for annual licenses, any more than a homeowner should have to
beg for an annual license to use the patch of land he has developed.

No other media in America is subjected to such persecution. If the New York
Times or Barnes & Noble publishes and distributes content some members of
the public disapprove of, the government cannot threaten them with fines or
penalties. But let Howard Stern offend a listener, and Clear Channel is
hammered with over a million dollars in fines.

So far, only "indecency" has been targeted by the FCC's crackdown--but
politicians on both sides of the aisle have begun whispering demands to
censor PBS or the Fox News Channel, on the grounds that their alleged biases
violate the "public interest." Both the liberals, with their political
correctness, and the conservatives, with their puritanical religious ethic,
claim to speak for the "public interest." Can it be long before the two
sides begin the battle over which ideas and values Americans are allowed to
see and hear on-air?

As the FCC wields its club ever more fiercely, broadcasters are running
scared. Clear Channel has canceled its "shock-jock" programs. Skittish
station-managers have bleeped out words like "urinate," "damn," and "orgy"
from the Rush Limbaugh program. Most ominous, The National Association of
Broadcasters convened a "Summit on Responsible Programming" to define
industry-wide standards of self-censorship. 

America was founded on the freedom of speech--on the right and
responsibility of the individual to decide what to say, and what to listen
to. Yet in the name of protecting ourselves from being offended--and almost
without noticing it--we are well on the way to surrendering that crucial
right to the control of the omnipotent state. 
_________________________________________________________________
Robert Garmong, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.