News In Brief

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a constitutional challenge to a 1992 federal law that encourages cable-television systems to restrict indecent programming.

The provisions at issue were proposed by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., as an amendment to a broad 1992 cable-television law. Sen. Helms cited the need to protect children from sexually explicit programming appearing on so-called leased-access channels, as well as on channels set aside for public, governmental, and educational use. An earlier federal law had barred cable-system operators from exercising any editorial control over such channels.

The high court on Nov. 13 agreed to hear the challenge of Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission ...