Second Circuit: Pacifica Is Outdated, All Media Deserve Full First Amendment Protection

The Second Circuit just threw out the FCC's broadcast indecency rules—which had led to heavy fines for "fleeting expletives"—as "unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here." What's ultimately most important about this decision is not what the court did, but what it said: The Constitutional framework that has allowed broadcast censorship has been rendered obsolete by the rise of the Internet and parental empowerment tools...