Third Circuit Rethinking Janet Jackson Case

摘要

While the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has clearly signaled that it still has major problems with the FCC's fleeting-profanity enforcement regime, the Third Circuit has quietly signaled that it may be going in another direction on indecency. At stake is what degree of leeway broadcasters will have from the government to compete with other media not subject to similar content regulation.rnThe Third Circuit is set to hear oral re-arguments on Feb. 23 about CBS stations' liability for broadcasting Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl reveal. Just as the Second Circuit had done with the FCC's profanity ruling against Fox, the Third Circuit initially threw out the commission's indecency finding against CBS, concluding that its fleeting-nudity enforcement represented an arbitrary and capricious change in policy.