From the Rose Law Group Reporter’s Growlery
By Phil Riske | Managing Editor
(Editor’s note: Opinion pieces are posted for discussion purposes only.)
In 2008, Congress passed the Child Safe Viewing Act, which directed the Federal Communications Commission to study the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies parents can use to protect children from indecent or objectionable video or audio programming.
Enter the V chip.
Flash forward: Retired Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor was selected this week to investigate alleged lack of safety, security and treatment at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH), which have been reported for several years now by ABC15.
Enter the Arizona Department of Health with its C for censorship chip.
Granted, it makes sense mental patients under the care of the state do not necessarily have the right to television programming in general or to specific programs. Such decisions are up to those in charge of patients’ treatments.
Certainly, some kinds of TV programs could adversely affect a mentally ill person.
But TV news? Are you nuts? (I guess I could be a real smart aleck here and say TV news could turn a mentally healthy person into an ill one.)
An unknown number of patients at the Arizona State Hospital were banned from watching ABC15 after the station aired a series of investigative reports.
The TV station says patients, family members and advocates have told it the hospital banned the channel and its newscasts once reports about uninvestigated sex abuse and other misconduct started in mid-May.
Wising up, but problems still ahead
It should have never happened in the first place, but currently, the hospital allows viewing of all news stations.
A letter addressed to the Human Rights Committee asks for the identification of those who issued the directive to deny access to the news and hold them “accountable for the harm they have done the people entrusted to the care of the state and ASH.”
Three top officials were recently canned, and Justice McGregor will conduct the outside investigation. Federal inspectors with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also have launched an investigation.
