Insert Nippular Pun of Your Choosing Here

• 21 Jul 2008
• reading,
• television

One wonders whether the final outcome (please god) of this debacle will get anything like the coverage (so to speak) that its origin did: the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has overturned the fine of $550,000 levied by the FCC against CBS after Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl.

There are multiple mitigations of this judgment: CBS, of course, already paid the fine, and apologized profusely. And goodness knows that the amount they’ve paid their lawyers to handle this over the last three and a half years way outstrips the fine itself.

But here’s to the Third Circuit, for pointing out the obvious: that the FCC had “arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy” of not punishing accidental, unplanned, brief, and otherwise stupidly trivial violations of “standards.”

And let this be only the first of the insanely stupid things that have happened in the U.S. since January 2001 to be undone.

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