WASHINGTON, DC -- Viacom, owner of the CBS network, has challenged the FCC's ruling levying $550,000 in fines on CBS-owned stations for showing Janet Jackson's bared breast during a half-second of the February Super Bowl show. Viacom suggests the Commission has run amok, "no longer recognizing any meaningful limits to its ability to regulate broadcast content." The $550,000 proposed fine for "an unplanned, fleeting exposure of a woman's breast is anything but a 'restrained' or 'cautious' approach to enforcement," Viacom said.

Viacom can go to federal appeals court if the FCC stands firm. Some constitutional experts say the case could reach the Supreme Court. Martin Garbus, a partner at Davis & Gilbert in New York, thinks it's "very unlikely" the current Supreme Court would side with Viacom.

However, Jonathan L. Katz, president of the Free Speech Coalition of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, believes that current indecency rules are "entirely unconstitutional" and that Viacom has a case.

"All we saw is a brief glimpse of a breast. That's not enough to justify these chilling fines," said Katz.

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excerpted from:
NETWORK TAKES ON FCC RULING
By Michael McCarthy
© USA Today 11-9-2004

As reported in Free Speech X-Press
Vol. VII, No. 2, Nov. 12, 2004
A Member the www.freespeechcoalition.com"