Excerpts from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in CBS Corp. v. FCC:

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“The Commission’s conclusion on the nature and scope of its indecency regime _ including its fleeting material policy _ is at odds with the history of its actions in regulating indecent broadcasts.

“In the nearly three decades between the Supreme Court’s ruling in Pacifica and CBS’s broadcast of the Halftime Show, the FCC had never varied its approach to indecency regulation based on the format of broadcasted content. Instead, the FCC consistently applied identical standards and engaged in identical analyses when reviewing complaints of potential indecency whether the complaints were based on words or images.”

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“Where the FCC’s entire enforcement regime is built on the agency’s treatment of words and images as functionally identical, it is unclear how the difference between words and images is ‘obvious.’ At minimum, the FCC cannot reasonably expect the difference between words and images to be so self-evident that broadcast licensees seeking to comply with indecency standards would interpret FCC enforcement orders narrowly based on whether the reviewed content consisted of words or images.”

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“Faced with extensive evidence to the contrary, the Commission nevertheless continues to assert that its fleeting material policy was limited to words and did not exclude fleeting images from the scope of actionable indecency.”

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“The FCC’s arbitrary and capricious change of policy on the broadcast of fleeting indecent material should be a sufficient ground to decide this case. But if not, it would appear the Commission incorrectly determined CBS’s liability for Jackson and Timberlake’s Halftime Show performance. CBS contends it neither planned Jackson and Timberlake’s offensive actions nor knew of the performers’ intent to incorporate those actions into their performance. The FCC does not dispute this assertion, but it nevertheless seeks to hold CBS liable for the performers’ actions. ... The First Amendment precludes the FCC from sanctioning CBS for the indecent expressive conduct of its independent contractors without offering proof of (knowledge) as an element of liability.”

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“In sum, the balance of the evidence weighs heavily against the FCC’s contention that its restrained enforcement policy for fleeting material extended only to fleeting words and not to fleeting images. As detailed, the Commission’s entire regulatory scheme treated broadcasted images and words interchangeably for purposes of determining indecency. Therefore, it follows that the Commission’s exception for fleeting material under that regulatory scheme likewise treated images and words alike. Three decades of FCC action support this conclusion.”