Group: FCC most 'egregious' censor

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., April 8 (UPI) -- The Federal Communications Commission has topped a Virginia organization's list of the most "egregious and ridiculous censors" in the United States for 2008.

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, based in Charlottesville, Va., said in a news release that it included the FCC on its 17th annual "Jefferson Muzzles" list for "its inconsistent and unpredictable standards for determining what constitutes 'indecent' broadcasting."

Also on the list were Sarpy County (Neb.) Attorney L. Kenneth Polikov, who pressed flag mutilation and negligent child abuse charges against a man whose son stood on a U.S. flag during a protest at a military funeral; U.S. Attorney Donald Washington and Grace Chung Baker, acting head of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, who pressed federal hate crime charges against a man who displayed nooses on the back of his pickup truck during a civil rights march in Jena, La.; and Lancaster County (Neb.) District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront, who banned witnesses at a sexual assault trial from using the words such as "rape," "victim" or "assailant" during testimony.

The center also cited the Federal Emergency Management Agency for having its employees pose as reporters during a news conference.