Seven dirty words
[1] The words, in the order Carlin listed them, are: "shit", "piss", "fuck", "cunt", "cocksucker", "motherfucker", and "tits".
[1][2] These words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United States, whether radio or television.
Nonetheless, a radio broadcast featuring these words led to a Supreme Court 5–4 decision in 1978 in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation that the FCC's declaratory ruling did not violate either the First or Fifth Amendments, thus helping define the extent to which the federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio in the United States.
During a performance in 1966, comedian Lenny Bruce said he had been arrested for saying nine words: "ass", "balls", "cocksucker", "cunt", "fuck", "motherfucker", "piss", "shit", and "tits".
On his next album, 1973's Occupation: Foole, he performed a similar routine titled "Filthy Words", dealing with the same list and many of the same themes.
In 1973 John Douglas, an active member of Morality in Media, claimed that he heard the WBAI broadcast while driving with his then 15-year-old son, Dean, and complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that the material was inappropriate for the time of day (approximately 2:00 p.m.).
WBAI appealed against this declaratory ruling, and the ruling was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2–1 decision on the grounds that the FCC's definition of "indecency" was overbroad and vague and thus violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.
In 1978, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, ruled that the FCC's declaratory ruling did not violate either the First or Fifth Amendments, but it limited the scope of its decision to the specific broadcast that caused the declaratory ruling and declined to consider whether the FCC's definition of indecency would survive a First Amendment challenge if applied to the broadcast of other material containing the same or similar words which had been cited in Pacifica's brief (e.g., works of Shakespeare – "pissing conduits", "bawdy hand of the dial on the prick of noon"; the Bible – "he who pisseth against the wall"; the Watergate Tapes).
It noted that while the declaratory ruling pertained to the meaning of the term "indecency" as used in a criminal statute (18 USC 1464), since the FCC had not imposed any penalty on Pacifica, the Court did not need to reach the question as to whether the definition was too vague to satisfy the due process requirements of the Fifth Amendment.
Four days after Carlin's original Class Clown recording, the routine was performed again for students at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The recording was restored in December, 2013 and uploaded to YouTube by archivists at UCLA and could be accessed free of charge, but is no longer available due to a claim of copyright infringement.
[14] The FCC ruling is referenced in "Offensive Language" from the album Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics and HBO special Doin' It Again, both 1990 recordings of the same performance; however, the routine that follows is entirely different.
3687, the "Clean Airwaves Act",[15] in Congress to designate a derivative list of Carlin's offensive words as profane in the U.S. Code.
In the text of the bill, the words shit, piss, fuck, cunt, asshole, and the phrases cock sucker, mother fucker, and ass hole are specifically listed.
[17] Whether the FCC or the Department of Justice could be empowered by the Congress to restrict indecent content on cable television without such legislation violating the Constitution has never been settled by a court of law.
