A broadcast flag is a set of status bits (or a "flag") sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include the inability to save an unencrypted digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducing high-definition video to the resolution of standard TVs), and inability to skip over commercials.

In the United States, new television receivers using the ATSC standard were supposed to incorporate this functionality by July 1, 2005.

Officially called "Digital Broadcast Television Redistribution Control," the FCC's rule is in 47 CFR 73.9002(b) and the following sections, stating in part: "No party shall sell or distribute in interstate commerce a Covered Demodulator Product that does not comply with the Demodulator Compliance Requirements and Demodulator Robustness Requirements." According to the rule, hardware must "actively thwart" piracy.

Joseph Farah (born July 6, 1954) is an American author, journalist and editor-in-chief of the conservative website WorldNetDaily (WND).

Farah was born in Paterson, New Jersey, on July 6, 1954, to parents of Syrian and Lebanese ancestry. His father was a schoolteacher. He graduated from William Paterson University, in Wayne, New Jersey with a B.A. in Communications. He is married to Elizabeth Farah and is a highly conservative evangelical Christian.

Farah worked for six years as executive news editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. On July 22, 1990, Farah became editor of the Sacramento Union. The paper had been losing up to $3 million annually, and in early 1990 it was purchased from Richard Mellon Scaife by Daniel Benvenuti Jr. and David Kassis. Farah and the paper's owners envisioned the paper as a conservative alternative to the Sacramento Bee. "We just thought the way to go was to be unabashedly conservative in our approach," explained Farah to the Washington Post. Among other things, Farah convinced Rush Limbaugh to write a daily column, which ran on "Page 1."