The FCC is still hell bent on punishing CBS for the nano-second glimpse of Janet Jackson's boob that appeared on the Super Bowl halftime show back in 2004. You'll recall that in July the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided to throw out the FCC's $550,000 fine against CBS, calling it arbitrary and capricious. So this week the FCC (with Department of Justice blessings) filed a writ of certiorari to examine records from the federal appeals court. They argued that the lower court did not give due deference to the FCC's "legitimate and rational basis for what it was doing and the court was improperly intruding into the FCC's turf." (And of course one must always defer to the moral authority of the FCC.) So now Jackson's titty may wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. CBS fired back: "We hope the Supreme Court will recognize there are rare instances, particularly during live programming, when it may not be possible to block unfortunate fleeting material, despite best efforts. Doing so would help to restore the policy of restrained indecency enforcement the FCC followed for decades." We agree with CBS. The FCC needs to get a life, and the Justice Department should stop squandering its resources on this drivel. Family values folks may shriek in outrage, but they'll eventually find something else to shriek about. They always do.
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