What Janet Wrought: Nip Slip Revisited

The FCC declines to extricate itself from Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction:

The government is renewing its crackdown on indecent television, proposing a total of $3.9 million in new fines while upholding its $550,000 fine against CBS stations for the Janet Jackson breast exposure at the Super Bowl.

The biggest proposed fine issued Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission was for $3.6 million -- a record -- against dozens of CBS stations and affiliates. The FCC said an episode of the CBS crime drama "Without a Trace" that aired in December 2004 was indecent, citing the graphic depiction of "teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy."

CBS reassures us that the show was actually a well disguised public service announcement; the program "featured an important and socially relevant storyline warning parents to exercise greater supervision of their teenage children." The AP report also points to the avalanche of complaints the FCC received between 2002 and 2005. In Reason's March issue, Jacob Sullum notices that in 2003 and 2004, over 99 percent of non-nipplegate related indecency complaints came from one, single, perpetually shocked source: The Parents Television Council.

Archive of celebrity nipple slips here.