Eye On CameraWare -- feature

Written by Alynna

The Federal Communications Commission has recently released their official policy on Broadcast Indecency. (This Policy covers indecency, not obscenity. Obscenity is not covered under the First Amendment. Obscenity is never legal under any circumstance.)

The new anti-indecency policy is fairly clearly laid out and is comprised of six sections. The first is an overview. The second is a short history of why broadcast indecency falls under FCC regulation.

The third section gives a clear definition of indecency:
First, the material alleged to be indecent must fall within the subject matter scope of our indecency definition – that is, the material must describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities.

Second, the broadcast must be patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium. In applying the "community standards for the broadcast
medium" criterion, the Commission has stated:
The determination as to whether certain programming is patently offensive is not a local one and does not encompass any particular geographic area. Rather, the standard is that of an average broadcast viewer or listener and not the sensibilities of any individual complainant.

(Third) In determining whether material is patently offensive, the full context in which the material appeared is critically important. It is not sufficient, for example, to know that explicit sexual terms or descriptions were used, just as it is not sufficient to know only that no such terms or descriptions were used.

The most interesting part is probably where they discuss actual cases that have been decided upon recently. Many complaints of indecency are filed every year and this policy was filled with examples of cases that have been heard and the decisions reached. There are several radio and TV shows which have questionable content in them, ranging from Howard Stern (surprise!) to Oprah. Fascinating!

The fourth section describes the Enforcement Process, which is a detailed procedure of exactly what information they need from the complainants, the standards by which it could be deemed indecent and the exact steps for prosecution are laid out.

The fifth and sixth sections are the Conclusion and the Ordering clause. This policy was released in March and was adopted April 6, 2001:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Enforcement/Orders/2001/fcc01090.pdf
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the above document.

Synthetic Children

Did you know that to be prosecutable under the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996, images:
- don't have to depict a child doing anything obscene?
- don't have to depict a naked child?
- don't have to depict a real child?

Computer imaging is developing at a phenomenal rate, enabling average every day computer users to do amazing things with images. Movies are using special effects to make images so lifelike that the naked eye cannot tell the difference between reality and animation. This has legislators fearful that Pedophiles will soon be able to make their own images on their home computers. Indeed it is now possible that, with a little money and imagination, a pedophile could feasibly cut a picture out of a magazine, scan it into his computer, and alter the picture so that the child appears to be engaged in some sexual activity. Even though the child will probably never know that he or she has been a ‘victim’ of child pornography and will suffer no psychological damage from the experience, it is the fear of legislators that looking at such images will spurn pedophiles into actually molesting a child. This shifts the intent of the law from child protection to inhibiting sexual fantasy.

The law itself is pretty easy to read and seems very reasonable. Take a look at it here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/unframed/18/2252A.html

The section that has people concerned is the definitions for the chapter. You can see them for yourself here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/unframed/18/2256.html

To quickly highlight the definitions that have many people worried:
(8) ''child pornography'' means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where -
(A) the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;
(B) such visual depiction is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;
(C) such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in
sexually explicit conduct; or
(D) such visual depiction is advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that conveys the
impression that the material is or contains a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.