LAS VEGAS -- Former MPAA president Jack Valenti railed against efforts to curb the First Amendment in the battles over media indecency and said that a $300 million media industry ad campaign would be aimed at showing parents the power they have to control what their children watch.

Appearing at a luncheon session at Monday's National Association of Broadcasters convention at the Las Vegas Hilton, Valenti said that broadcasters were part of an unprecedented movement encompassing cable systems and satellite providers, national broadcast networks, TV and cable programmers and the electronics manufacturers. It's an awareness campaign that aims to tell parents how to use the V-chip and other technology that's probably built into their sets already -- thus eliminating the need for federal laws on TV indecency.

"We want to tell American parents that they and they alone have total power to control every hour of television programming that comes into their home," Valenti said. "The Congress cannot do it, the FCC cannot do it, and particularly what I consider to be ill-defined, vague and very fuzzy, misty definitions."

Valenti said the First Amendment keeps Congress and the FCC from regulating speech on cable and satellite, leaving only the broadcasters at risk from laws.

"Much of what is going on now in my personal judgment is unconstitutional," Valenti said.

The Ad Council effort, created with McCann Erickson, will take shape next month and hit broadcast, satellite and cable TV soon afterward. A grass-roots effort also will take place, reaching out to church and children's advocacy groups as well as education efforts aimed at salespeople at local TV stores to help them show parents how the V-chip and other blocking devices work.

In a brief speech, Valenti read the First Amendment.

" 'Congress shall pass no law,' " Valenti said. "Those words don't waffle ... No law is as clear as the mother tongue can make it."

In remarks earlier in the day, NAB president David K. Rehr said too much of the debate on decency focuses on broadcast TV and radio.

"For television, we need to reframe the debate away from the stray, indecent slip-up," Rehr said. "On the radio side, the FCC needs to pay more attention to the obscenity and vulgarity that has found its home on satellite radio."

Rehr committed NAB to defending the First Amendment "wholeheartedly."

"NAB is going to play a leading role to maximize one of America's most fundamental axioms, the need for personal responsibility," Rehr said. "We will empower people to make good choices based upon their own tastes and values."