The Senate snuck in unanimous consent for an indecency bill that multiplies fines for what the prigs on the FCC consider indecent to $325,000 per utterance and up to $3 million per act. The House version is different but just as frightening.
So, if you are on live TV and you say “Bush’s war is bullshit,” every station that airs it will be fined and you, too, can be fined if one of these bills is signed into law, fined into bankruptcy and chilled into silence. This is bullshit.
Damnit, we need a vocal response to this effort to shut us up. We need an impassioned defense of the First Amendment. We need to see network executives — and not just their front-man groups — standing up to fight. We need to see the entertainers who have been and will be penalized stand up for their rights of free expression. We need to see journalists stand up to defend the First Amendment that defends them.
First, we need to see coverage. This barely got attention in the news.
