Opinion ID: 564965
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Void For Vagueness Issue

Text: 18 The Supreme Court in Sable recognized the compelling interest of preventing minors from being exposed to indecent telephone messages. Sable, 492 U.S. at 131, 109 S.Ct. at 2839. Accordingly, the district court in the case at bar did not call into question the power of Congress to regulate indecent telephone communications involving children, noting that it was addressing only the separate issue of the meaning of indecent telephone speech, an issue not directly addressed by the Sable Court. American Information Enterprises, 742 F.Supp. at 1267 n. 16. Applying to the Helms Amendment the basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined, Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2298, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972), the district court resolved the issue as follows: 19 Without any additional specificity, the term indecency on its own is too vague to pass constitutional muster. The term indecency does not inherently contain within it a reference to specifically defined conduct, as does the term obscenity. ... Moreover, the term does not appear in the context of a specific definition of conduct.... The statute and regulations only make a person of common intelligence aware that offensive communications are to be restricted. 20 American Information Enterprises, 742 F.Supp. at 1271 (citations omitted). 21 The district court erred. Indecent, as used in the Helms Amendment, has been defined clearly by the Federal Communication Commission pursuant to its statutory direction to prescribe by regulation procedures for preventing access to dial-a-porn by minors. 47 U.S.C. Sec. 223(b)(3). This definition was developed during the notice-and-comment rulemaking process in response to a void for vagueness contention similar to that made here: 22 [I]n the dial-a-porn context, we believe it is appropriate to define indecency as the description or depiction of sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the telephone medium. 23 In re Regulations Concerning Indecent Communications by Telephone, Gen. Dkt. No. 90-64, p 12 (Report and Order, released June 29, 1990) (hereafter FCC Report and Order ). The foregoing interpretation, by the agency charged with the administration of the statute, was not accorded the weight to which it was entitled by the district court. See Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-45, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-83, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). 24 It is noteworthy that the Commission's most recent definition of indecent tracks one that it developed in the radio broadcast context and that passed muster in the Supreme Court: 25 [T]he concept of indecent is intimately connected with the exposure of children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities and organs, at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. 26 FCC v. Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. 726, 731-32, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 3031, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978) (quoting FCC opinion). 27 Since Pacifica implicated the broadcast medium, rather than the telephone medium, the district court found that it cannot be assumed that the Pacifica definition of 'indecent' applies here. 742 F.Supp. at 1271 (footnote omitted). According to the district court, the FCC merely was assuming that this definition would be what courts will find 'indecent' to mean in [the] Helms Amendment. Id. at 1269. It is clear, however, that the FCC was not predicting what courts would do. Rather, it was defining a term contained in a statute it was required by Congress to administer. This is no less so because it was following an earlier FCC definition embraced in a court decision relating to the broadcast medium. Accordingly, the term indecent as used in the Helms Amendment is sufficiently defined to provide guidance to the person of ordinary intelligence in the conduct of his affairs. Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108, 92 S.Ct. at 2298. Under the circumstances, appellees' vagueness challenge must be rejected. See Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 932 F.2d 1504, 1508 (D.C.Cir.1991); Information Providers' Coalition for Defense of the First Amendment v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866, 874-76 (9th Cir.1991); Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 852 F.2d 1332, 1338-39 (D.C.Cir.1988).