FCC Indecency & Howard Stern

I forgot to comment on the remarkably candid interview that FCC Chairman Michael Powell gave last month on the topics of broadband policy, industry transitions, regulatory philosophy, Skype and VOIP, censorship and Howard Stern. While the streaming video has been available, the transcript proliferated in the blogosphere:
• Denise Howell captured the most salient parts of the broad discussion.
• Marc Canter covers Powell’s further ruminations on indecency.

At minute 25:08 (and into the Q&A), I ask about the recent FCC crackdown on indecency. I had two pages of questions from Howard Stern (who has no great love for the FCC), and in a burst of recursive irony, I self-censored the indecent ones (like PBS recently). Here are some of the questions from Howard, and I only got to the first one in the interview:

“Aside from Oprah, who else will you NOT fine?”
“What makes the FCC qualified to determine what is indecent?”
“What role should religion play in determining indecency standards?”

The FCC answer points to the number of complaints as the motivation for the crackdown. This sounds like a voting system of “majority rules”…. which seems to run counter to the spirit of the First Amendment and the protection of minority voices.