ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601100047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Rebuffing free-speech advocates, the Supreme Court is letting federal regulators confine racy television and radio programs to late-night hours when children are less likely to tune in.
The justices left intact, without comment, a federal appeals court ruling that upheld government limits on indecent broadcasts. The Federal Communications Commission restricts any such program on TV or radio to the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The news media, civil liberties and children's advocacy groups and others, including poet Allen Ginsberg, had challenged the rule as a violation of free-speech rights. The appeals court had ruled last summer that the rule was justified by the government's ``compelling interest in protecting children.''
Eight of the nine justices made it to work, several with the help of four-wheel-drive vehicles sent by court officials. Justice John Paul Stevens was stranded in Florida because all Washington-area airports were closed.
In other action Monday, the court:
Turned down a parents'-rights challenge to a program making condoms available to students in public junior and senior high schools in Falmouth, Mass. The state's highest court upheld the program last July.
Let stand the designation of about 6.8 million acres of federal land in Oregon, Washington and California as protected ``critical habitat'' for the northern spotted owl. Douglas County, Ore., had challenged the designation.
Ruled that train crews are not on duty while they wait to be picked up at a stopped train after they have worked the maximum 12 straight hours allowed by federal law.
Heard arguments in a dispute over whether copyright protection can be granted to the part of a computer program that instructs users how to use the program.
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