The Child Safe Viewing Act

In 2007, the senate passed a bill (s.602) requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to initiate a proceeding to consider measures to encourage or require the use of advanced blocking technologies on various devices that are capable or transmitting or receiving video or audio programming. Such devices include, for example, television sets, DVD players, VCRs, cable and satellite receivers. The government wants these technologies to operate independently of ratings pre-assigned by the creators of such programming, thus enhancing the ability of parents to directly protect their children from indecent or objectionable programming.

A “proceeding” is the institution of a sequence of steps by which legal judgments are invoked. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the public and industry have opportunities to comment on FCC proceedings. You do not need to be a lawyer to file comments with the FCC. All you need is an interest in the issue and the ability to follow directions.

If you want your voice heard on this subject, you can go to the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) site on the Internet ( www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/ ). Click on the “Submit Filing” link. You’ll need to fill in your name and address and the proceeding number that you are commenting on. The proceeding number for the Child Safe Viewing Act is 09-26. You can type your comments directly into the website or attach documents.

If you are interested in tracking the comments of other individuals and companies on this topic, you can use the FCC site to search for filings. A more convenient alternative is signing up for email alerts at a site such as www.FilingAlerts.com/. Sign up with your email address and a password. Then just add proceeding number 09-26 to your “watch list”. You’ll start receiving email alerts automatically when new comments are added. The alerts contain links to the documents so you can read them at your leisure without having to visit the FCC site and fill in a search form.

FilingAlerts.com is not a free service. It cost $99 per year and may be more affordable to lawyers and other firms but it is open to anyone, and you they offer a free 30-day trial.