Transcript of Sen. Stevens' remarks on Internet "indecency"laws [fs]

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:25:22 -0500
To: <politech () politechbot com>
Subject: [Politech] Transcript of Sen. Stevens' remarks on Internet
"indecency"laws [fs]



[See the third paragraph... --Declan]


http://commerce.senate.gov/newsroom/printable.cfm?id=233399

Transcript of Chairman Stevens' Remarks on Decency Legislation

March 11, 2005

Question: On a different issue, are you still planning for the Commerce
Committee to markup the Broadcast Decency bill and do you know when that
would be and also are you considering expanding that to include cable?

Chairman Stevens: It will be as soon as we can bring it about and yes, I
intend to try and level the playing field. I take the position that at
the time the Supreme Court made its decision about cable, cable was just
one of the ways for public access to television products. Today 85
percent of the television that is brought to American homes is brought
by cable and I believe that the playing field should be leveled. We have
imposed this as a standard on local broadcasters. Under the law, we
compel cable to carry those local broadcasters. But today when this
indecency takes place, the people I¹ve talked to call their local
television station and say: ³What¹s this? Why should I be looking at
this?² The second thing is, cable has situation where if you want to
protect yourself, your children from that, you have the duty to call
them and say how can I prevent this from coming into my house. We¹re not
going to censor cable. We¹re just going to do, by the way, what the
movie business does in the beginning ­ you read the ad about the movie,
you look at it and it tells you whether its something you should take
your children to. Why should cable insist that you have to call them
because your children have already seen something that you don¹t want
them to see? Now, we are going to mark it up and I hope cable comes to
its senses and understands that I think the American people mean
business. I¹ve got a thousand emails, what not, spurred by the cable
industry. We got 10,000 from the public and I believe the public is with us.

We ought to find some way to say, here is a block of channels, whether
it¹s delivered by broadband, by VoIP, by whatever it is, to a home, that
is clear of the stuff you don¹t want your children to see. And, were not
saying you can¹t, you know, you can buy anything you want, I don¹t care
how they package it. If you want to pay for, you have a right to buy it.
We¹re not saying anything about purchases, except we¹re saying, they
have the burden to tell you what¹s in it like the movie business does,
not force you to expose your children first and then go back and say how
can I get right of this stuff. I think they¹ll come to their senses, I
really do. I think the Congress means business now. I have not received
many complaints from, I can¹t think of any real complaints from Members
of Congress about what I have been saying. They say right on, but do it
right, and that¹s why we postponed the markup until after the recess and
we¹re going to do it right and I invite cable to come in and talk. I¹ve
told them, we¹re ready to talk. As a matter of fact, I¹ve only been
married for 25 years and I¹m going on my honeymoon a week from today.
Coming back from that honeymoon we¹ll stop in at the cable convention
and talk to them.
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