You’ll Be Naked By The End Of This Blog!
A federal court of appeals ruled today that the FCC’s $500,000 fine against CBS for the 2004 Janet Jackson Nipple Gate was out of Control!
A three-judge panel in Philadelphia tossed out the fine, concluding that the FCC “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine for the nine-sixteenths of a second that the world saw Janet’s nipple during the Superbowl halftime show.
The court found that the FCC’s actions were inconsistent. For 30 years, the FCC fined indecent broadcast programming only when it was so “pervasive as to amount to ’shock treatment’ for the audience.” “Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing,” the court said. “But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure.”
In short, the court found that Janet’s brief nudity just wasn’t Nasty enough to warrant the fine.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:32 am
[...] federal court of appeals ruled that the FCC’s $500,000 fine against CBS for the 2004 Janet Jackson Nipple Gate was out of [...]