As reported in the NY Times, A Federal Appeals court in NY just gutted the FCC's ability to fine broadcasters for "fleeting expletives" uttered over the air.
The case at hand was NBC's broadcasting of a Bono expletive during the Golden Globes a few years back. But it also means that, among other things, broadcasters will no longer have to arbitrarily alter reality to bleep things like American soldiers reacting extemely negative to incoming fire, as PBS had to do two years ago.
But for me, the real chuckle in the decision is this:
Adopting an argument made by lawyers for NBC, the judges then cited examples in which Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had used the same language that would be penalized under the policy. Mr. Bush was caught on videotape last July using a common vulgarity that the commission finds objectionable in a conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Three years ago, Mr. Cheney was widely reported to have muttered an angry obscene version of "get lost" to Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the United States Senate.
The FCC is now in rewrite mode.