Dear All;
You may remember the Janet Jackson flesh-flash episode during the Super Bowl 2004 half-time show and how the FCC got all puffed up about the incident and fined CBS $500,000. The federal appeals court popped that ballon.
The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.
The court further found: that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience."
It's time the FCC got shut down as it was originally instituted by FDR to control radio stations and their licenses if they didn't kiss FDR's butt. And radio stations were shut down because they didn't hew to the FDR party line.
LBJ also used the FCC to get Lady Bird her Radio and TV station special privileges which literally earned them millions. See the story from Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2170481/nav/tap3/
Now that we really need him to lance the boil that is the FCC - sadly - George Carlin is no longer with us and his 7 dirty words plus a few more I'm certain he could've conjured up.
http://www.tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx/?news=323736>1=28103
http://tinyurl.com/6dycll
Ron Getty - SF Libertarian
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