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July 21, 2008 at 2:12pm
by thecodepounder A federal appeals court today threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS imposed as a result of the notorious “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
I wrote about this nearly two years ago, on my old blog, wherein I concluded:
My personal credo has always been “to each his own, just leave me alone.” But you know, leaving me alone also means letting me decide for myself what is or isn’t indecent and what is or isn’t appropriate for my kids (see “lowest common denominator principle” above). I guess I just get a little “pissed off” (not profane according to the FCC when “used as part of a slang expression that means ‘angry’”) when anyone else tries to impose their standards on me. Of course, in the best traditions of America, that should probably piss us all off.
Well, todays’ appeals court decision hopefully will mark the start of the much needed pendulum swing back in the direction of rational common sense.
For what it’s worth, the court found that the FCC violated its own well-established and long-standing practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so “pervasive as to amount to ’shock treatment’ for the audience.”
The Commission’s determination that CBS’s broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency’s departure from its prior policy
[emphasis added]
Personally, I don’t know what’s more American than bare female breasts. Just what the hell do you think our fighting men in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for? [cue: national anthem]
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