Score a big one for the First Amendment today.
"The First Amendment precludes the FCC from sanctioning CBS for the indecent expressive conduct" of Janet Jackson's nine-sixteenths-of-a-second exposed breast, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today, and in striking down the FCC's obscene $550,000 fine, the Federal appeals court not only saved CBS lots of money, but struck a blow for freedom of expression on television, and media in general.
It's good to remember that this current reign of FCC terror, in which fines of millions of dollars have been levied by the FCC against offending media, was ignited by that split second of Janet Jackson's breast in the Super Bowl Halftime show on CBS in 2004. The FCC said it received more than a million complaints from outraged Americans about indecent broadcasts that year, and even though it was later revealed that at least half were instigated by Brent Bozell's Parents Television Council (see my debate with Bozell below), the race to trample the First Amendment was on.
Today's decision focused on the special absurdity of going ballistic over split seconds - fleeting appearances - of images.
The Supreme Court will be deciding a case on fleeting words in the Fall.
We have a long way to go. But America has finally stepped back from the stampede to censorship. Hats off to the 3rd Circuit Court.
Brent Bozell v. Paul Levinson on the First Amendment, November 11, 2004
See also The Flouting of the First Amendment
and my interview about this ruling, in the Los Angeles Times
4 comments:
Interesting what Tivo and the Internet have done with regard to these cases. If the JJ-nipple incident had occurred about 15 years ago, there would certainly have been outrage, but it would have died fairly quickly.
Now, "curious" viewers could go back and freeze frame her nude breast, screen capture it, and post it to the net, for example. Go ahead, Google "Janet Jackson nipple" and click 'images.' Bingo. Continued salaciousness from the likes of us and continued uproar about television from Bozell and company. Funny that TV is the least important part of the story all these years later....
Careful- just because you know your right and supreme court supports you doesn't mean you'll get anywhere.
DC basically snubbed the heller decision, I'd expect something equally as flagrant in its disregard for supreme court rulings and respect for the BOR.
Tell me more about the snubbing...
Ah- glad you asked.
http://gunzandshit.blogspot.com/2008/07/dear-dc-politicians-you-suck.html
there is a link to my blog on it. In an attempt to usurp the supreme court ruling (in my not so humble opinion), DC has rushed to try to reclassify any semi-automatic handgun as a machine gun, and refused to allow them to be registered.
Heller- the man who had this case brought up to the Supreme court, was denied a handgun permit for his semi-automatic handgun.
also- I am assuming the link to the news story was mis-reported, but if not, that means that DC refused to amend their legislation. Again, I assume it is a mis-print, but if not that means that regardless of the decision, DC did not remove any of the ban as instructed by SCOTUS.
DC is now instituting a program where all residents have to turn in their weapons for additional ballistic printing, and a whole bunch of other steps that are little more than assinine.
Now some definitions for the non-firearms community.
A machine gun is a fully automatic rifle- capable of firing multiple rounds with a single squeeze of the trigger. this would be along the lines of a true military m16, or AK-47, or m-60 machine gun.
civilian versions, though often similar in looks- CANNOT fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. there are a limited amount of machine guns in the civilian market, and the legally owned ones carry price tags well into the 10s of thousands of dollars, along with mucho paperwork.
a semi-automatic firearm, is like the one I described- 1 trigger pull- 1 round fired.
a semi-automatic handgun functions the same way- 1 round per trigger pull.
by reclassifying semi-automatic handguns as machine guns, DC has 'rebanned' over 75% of all handguns in circulation in the US.
taking their definition further- of any firearm fed from a magazine from the bottom, they have also mis-labled many bolt action rifles, with magazines, as machine guns.
a bolt action rifle requires a bolt to be manipulated every time the weapon is fired to not only load a round into the chamber, but then again to extract the fired casing.
DC is trying to gain ground in gun banning after this decision, not loosen it in accordance with the decision presented.
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