NY Times: FCC rebuffed by court on indecency fines. The decision, by a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, was a sharp rebuke for the Federal Communications Commission and for the Bush administration. It was a major victory in a legal battle being waged by the four television networks–Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC–that had filed the case.
It was important for the networks to stand up to the bullying that was turning the FCC into the Federal Censorship Commission. Broadcasters deserve First Amendment protections, and the current regulatory system has been grossly misused to clamp down on speech of various kinds.