Nipplegate ends up being a bust:
A federal appeals court has ruled that the FCC acted improperly when it imposed a half-million dollar fine on CBS for broadcasting an image of Janet Jackson's exposed nipple for a fraction of a second during the 2004 Super Bowl. The court ruled that the broadcast was legal under the FCC's then-current policy of allowing "fleeting" indecency on the airwaves, and that it was unfair of the FCC to change the policy retroactively.
Wednesday's ruling is the second time the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has sided with CBS on the issue. It reached the same conclusion in a 2008 ruling. But the Supreme Court asked the Third Circuit to reconsider after ruling that the FCC could punish Fox for "fleeting expletives" uttered by Cher and Nicole Richie during broadcasts in 2002 and 2003.
[. . .]
Judge Scirica, the author of the court's original opinion, dissented from Wednesday's ruling. He argued that the Supreme Court's Fox decision meant that "the safe harbor for fleeting nonliteral expletives was an isolated exception rather than an instance of a more general rule." Hence, he said, punishing CBS for nipplegate was consistent with the policies the FCC had in place at the time.
So I guess we have some confusion here. "Fleeting expletives" would seem to get you into a little more trouble than "fleeting indecency," so if Rick Perry shows up drunk to give a speech, you should probably ask him to talk dirty instead of doing a striptease when the cameras are on. I wonder if I could make this blog a "safe harbor for fleeting nonliteral expletives." But then I'd probably get stuck with that nickname. Leo? Oh, he's around here somewhere. I can never keep track of that fleeting nonliteral expletive.
But seriously, folks. It's time for the FCC to be hounded out of existence. It had long outlived its usefulness when cable came along, and completely unregulated channels featuring all kinds of obscentiy and nudity esixted right around the dial on your TV from the regulated and sanitized channels. From the story:
