FCC Make Work Projects

J.J. Jackson* | March 10, 2008

Filed Under First Amendment, The Constitution, Unconstitutional Acts, Unconstitutional Spending

I’m still waiting for someone to point out the Constitutional authority for the FCC. It’s not under Article I of the Constitution which lists the powers for which Congress is allowed to spend tax dollars on and it certainly runs counter to the first amendment which prohibits Congressional action against freedom of speech or the press.

Like most federal agencies however, they have to create “Make Work” Projects in order to justify their existance.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Federal Communications Commission official is seeking an inquiry into the blacking out of a politically charged segment of the CBS News magazine “60 Minutes” by a local television station in Alabama.FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he had asked the chairman of the FCC to open an inquiry into the February 24 incident at WHNT, a CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, in which civil rights footage from the 1960s was blacked out.

“The FCC now needs to find out if something analogous is going on here,” Copps said at a luncheon with media watchdog groups. “Was this an attempt to suppress information on the public airwaves, or was it really just a technical problem?”

Copps is one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member FCC. The chairman of the agency, Kevin Martin, is a Republican.

And if it was some nefarious plot? What authority does Congress and their surrogates at the FCC have?

How does regulating the so-called “public airwaves” square with issues like freedom of the press and news agencies that determine what will be broadcast on their stations? That’s the problem with liberalism. It always contradicts basic rights. Whereas what SHOULD happen is if there was some nefarious plot people could vote with their feet and not watch that station any more. But that would be liberty; a concept foreign to Americans these days.

Contributor's website: http://www.libertyreborn.com

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