ACLU Blames FCC For 'War' Objectors

Filed in archive Announcements on August 28, 2007

"To impede the First Amendment rights of those who fought and died for those very rights is reprehensible. Our public broadcasters should not be afraid to air fourteen hours of an educational and fact-based documentary because of a handful of profanities. Images of the brutality of war are far more disturbing than any four letter word."

So says ACLU Washington legislative director Caroline Fredrickson in a statement. The American Civil Liberties Union says some public TV stations are reluctant to air Ken Burns' World War II documentary, The War, because of a handful of profanities. From what I read in an article in Broadcasting & Cable, the main profanity might be that the term SNAFU is defined. Oh my!

To say that the FCC has sometimes been confusing is an understatement. In one ruling they said that it was OK to air Saving Private Ryan (despite its profanity being in a fiction story). Then, about a PBS blues documentary, it was determined indecent because some musicians uttered profanities in their interviews.

I believe that untalented writers love to throw the F-bomb around way too much to compensate for lazy and unimaginative story writing and I don't like it. Many other people (especially those with children) also don't like the coarsening of our airways for cultural reasons. But, the FCC is proving once again that a bureaucratic solution will never work.