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WEEK IN REVIEW
Tuesday


SPEEA workers OK Boeing's contract offer
Keystone run to get new ferry by 2010
At a stalemate, lawmakers put off decision on s...
Monday


Crops attract snow geese; hunts control field-d...
County budget cuts hit courts, will affect cities
Man sold Lowe's gift cards from stolen goods, p...
Sunday


Fighting foreclosure: How one couple got caught...
Monroe man's family remembers a life devoted to...
155-year boys club comes to an end
Saturday
How to avoid holiday thieves
Burn ban orders will have new teeth
Get a flu shot now, officials urge
Friday


A community in limbo
Ideas arise on housing sex offenders
Turnout for historic election breaks county and...
Thursday


Ways to Give: Where you can make a difference
Ways to give: Charities hit hard from both sides
County Council cuts deeply from most staff exce...
Wednesday


Cancer survivor is again living the life of a t...
Tulalip school is grieving once more
Faulty part bogs down Boeing's jet lines
 

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Associated Press  (click to enlarge)
Entertainer Janet Jackson covers her breast after her outfit came undone during the Feb. 1, 2004, Super Bowl halftime performance with Justin Timberlake in Houston.
 
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Published: Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Court tosses FCC's fine for Jackson's bared breast

PHILADELPHIA -- A federal appeals court on Monday threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction."

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 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song," as he reached for Jackson's bustier.

The court 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."

"Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing," the court said. "But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure."

The $550,000 fine represented the maximum $27,500 levied against each of the network's 20 owned-and-operated stations.

Shortly after the 2004 Super Bowl, the FCC changed its policy on fleeting indecency following an NBC broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show on which U2 lead singer Bono uttered an unscripted expletive. The FCC said at the time that the "F-word" in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can trigger enforcement.

NBC challenged the decision, but that case has yet to be resolved.

In June 2007, a federal appeals court in New York invalidated the government's policy on fleeting profanities uttered over the airwaves in a case involving remarks by Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows carried on Fox stations. The Supreme Court will hear the case this fall.

1. SPEEA workers OK Boeing's contract offer
2. Masked man robs south Everett bank at gunpoint
3. Bye-bye Ibanez, hello Griffey?
4. Infant's injuries may be lifelong
5. Lynnwood woman dies of burn injuries suffered while cooking
6. Gregoire "declined" job with Obama
7. Couple's plight is of their own making
8. At a stalemate, lawmakers put off decision on site for local university
9. Help's on the way for troubled Countrywide mortgage holders
10. Keystone run to get new ferry by 2010
Enterprise Newspaper Snohomish County Business Journal
Deficits loom for senior program
Edmonds to delay most drastic cuts
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City readies for 'green' road
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Lynnwood OKs rec center financing plan
Future of Viaduct and Seawall to be decided soon
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It's pie time
The Enterprise Online Newspaper

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