As I noted a couple months ago, I've been sort of skimming the Howard Stern show lately. He has been effectively driven off the broadcast airwaves by, among other things, what he claims as the capricious and arbitrary undocumented censorship regime of the FCC.

Sounds like the whacked ravings of an attention-grabbing shock jock, right?

Weeeell, yes, except... now, CNN is reporting that more than 20 ABC affiliates have cancelled their annual showings of the movie Saving Private Ryan in fear of FCC sanctions. Although the Oscar-winning movie has been aired uncut twice before, stations are nervous.

Adding to this is the FCC's usual shell game. Here's how it works: a broadcaster calls up and says "Will we get in trouble for showing this?" The FCC coyly declines to respond, saying it doesn't monitor, only reacts to complaints. So the broadcaster is left in a Catch-22, unable to know in advance if they're violating rules, if someone will complain, if the FCC will take action on that complaint. The FCC gets to claim it's not censoring, meanwhile creating an atmosphere of pervasive fear and uncertainty.

Orwell would be proud.