Supreme Court to hear FCC f-bomb appeal on Election Day

By Matthew Lasar | Published: October 06, 2008 - 10:25PM CT

On Tuesday, November 4, while millions of Americans cast their ballots in one of the most important presidential elections in United States history, there’s a good chance that more than a few cuss words will be exclaimed in and out of voting booths. How appropriate, then, that the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for FCC vs. Fox Television Stations on that very day. The case will decide whether “fleeting expletives”—potty talk said on the fly—can be broadcast on television and radio.

Specifically, the high court will consider (PDF) whether New York’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals “erred” in whacking an FCC decision to sanction obscene and indecent language “when the expletives are not repeated.”

To quickly recap: In 2006 the FCC cited Fox Television for its broadcasts of Cher and Nicole Richie peppering their prose with “fuck,” “fucking,” and “shit,” during the 2002 and 2003 editions of the Billboard Music Awards. This was a new policy, because the dirty words in question had been said rather quickly, and had not been repeated, thus their being called “fleeting expletives.” But several years earlier, following Bono’s famous declaration at the Golden Globes Awards (“this is really, really fucking brilliant”), the FCC had warned that now, even this level of nasty talk would be considered indecent…