"The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression." Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated these words in a 1961 case when his fellow judges ruled in favor of allowing municipalities to ban the showing of motion pictures that did not meet certain moral standards (Simpson, James B. Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, http://www.bartleby.com/63/27/1827.html). Throughout American history, many similar battles have been fought between those favoring censorship and those opposed. But with today's ever-changing values, has the United States outgrown the need for censorship? New technology is developed continually that increases a viewer's power to see only what he or she wishes to. Also, the fact that many shows containing potentially offensive material return season after season illustrates that the majority of viewers are not offended by their content. Most people need only to be informed about what content a show contains, leaving the option of whether or not they wish to view it up to them. Therefore, due to the advent of personal censorship methods and a continually evolving culture, we should greatly lighten broadcast censorship, ridding the industry of regulation and replacing it merely by information.
             The current morality standards of broadcast television are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC regulates speech in two different ways. The first is regulation of "obscene" speech. "Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken ...