Open Letter to the FCC

The FCC & PTC Complaints

"Dear Chairman Powell:

I understand that the FCC's recent clampdowns on free speech are influenced in large degree by complaints from the Parents Television Council (source of 99.8 percent of the so-called 'indecency' complaints in 2003, according to Mediaweek's investigation posted at http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731656). I am curious about why you seem to consider the occasional exposure of a human body part a greater obscenity than the diminution of free expression.

When policy changes impinging on free speech result from a barrage of complaints by one organization, any citizen must wonder whether you, as a public official, serve the entire population or that group alone. PTC does not represent the nation as a whole; it is simply a well-organized interest group advocating a quixotic puritanism explicitly rooted in a theocratic belief system antithetical to the principles expressed in the First Amendment. Do not confuse the number of PTC's complaints (I trust you understand the technologies behind spam) with the breadth of its support. Believers in free speech still outnumber them.

If the tender sensibilities of the PTC can't handle the trivial challenges of pop culture -- a mildly salacious halftime show, say, or a few comedians whose vocabularies include certain blunt monosyllables that have been part of the English language for centuries -- then these easily offended people can simply turn the channel. But if the state asserts increasing control over the full range of expression (ranging from sexual display and humor to the more 'serious' art forms to the political dissent and investigative journalism that are the lifeblood of democracy), those of us who still honor the First Amendment will have no recourse at all.

Please reconsider your policies and your apparent loyalties. A free, open, and substantively democratic culture may gradually disappear from the United States, God forbid, but if this happens, it won't be because of Howard Stern or Janet Jackson. It will be because of a theocratic faction that has the temerity to call itself 'Christian' as it sends Jefferson and Orwell spinning in their graves. Please recognize the PTC for what it is, and please start listening to the rest of us.

Regards,
William B. Millard
New York, NY"