Free Republic

Judiciary: A federal court has overturned the Federal Communications Commission's fine against CBS for broadcasting nudity during its 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Airwaves can't be policed without weapons.Once again, the importance of who serves in the federal judiciary was made as clear as a high-definition TV image on Monday, as a three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals knocked down a $550,000 FCC fine against CBS. Two of the three judges were Bill Clinton appointees, but it was the Reagan-appointed Anthony Scirica who wrote the decision — demonstrating again that Republican presidents must take great care...

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday overturned a decision to fine CBS Corp (CBS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) television stations $550,000 for airing a brief breast flash by pop singer Janet Jackson during the 2004 Super Bowl broadcast.

I have to ask this question. A lady who I work with likes to listen to her soaps over the TV audio on her radio. She asked me that after NTSC broadcasts are stopped in February 2009, will she still be able to get channels 2 thru 13 audio. I told her no, I'm assuming the analogue TV sound will cease to be broadcast as well but I'm looking for a definite answer. Am I right is assuming her TV audio radio will be no good after 2009?

Incensed by what it sees as a virtual pandemic of verbal vulgarity issuing from the diverse likes of Howard Stern, Bono of U2 and Robert Novak, the United States Senate is poised to consider a bill that would sharply increase the penalty for obscenity on the air. By raising the fines that would be levied against offending broadcasters some fifteenfold, to a fee of about $500,000 per crudity broadcast, and by threatening to revoke the licenses of repeat polluters, the Senate seeks to return to the public square the gentler tenor of yesteryear, when seldom were heard any scurrilous words,...

Clean Up Airwaves Years ago, a guy who ran a pornography shop came to see me. He had been busted by the cops. He wanted me to write a story defending his free-speech rights. "If they can arrest me, they can arrest somebody for selling Shakespeare," he said, dragging out the old slippery-slope argument. "Well, if you start selling Shakespeare and somebody arrests you for selling Shakespeare, come see me," I said. "In the meantime, get out of my office." The First Amendment was not written, designed or intended to protect obscenity, vulgarity, pornography and indecency — or dancing nude...