Just six months ago, I toured the XM Satellite Radio studios and talked with some of the company’s executives about issues facing the startup. XM, it’s founders, and its officers are pretty libertarian. At the meeting, I brought up the possibility that Congress might try to use the “pervasiveness” argument to extend the FCC’s decency regulations to satellite radio and cable television. XM’s management assured me that wouldn’t happen. After all, they said, XM had parental controls. It’s easy to block out adult content. Besides, you have to pay for XM and cable. Anyone can get broadcast.

Well, here’s the lesson: Never underestimate Congress’ will to run our lives:

A U.S. Senate bill authorizing government censorship of cable and satellite TV channels references children 44 times and the First Amendment not at all.

Filtering blue material to protect youngsters should play well in red states. Look for the FX channel to replace “The Shield” with “The Osmonds!” and the History Channel to run “The History of Abstinence” instead of its “History of Sex.”

Who says you get what you pay for?

The bipartisan “Indecent and Gratuitous and Excessive Violence Broadcasting Control Act of 2005″ was introduced this week by co-sponsors Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

Honest to God, is there no damned part of our lives these people don’t feel they have privilege to stick their damned noses into?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 20th, 2005 at 10:29 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.