The New Year arrives with yet another satisfying rebuke to the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency rules. Nearly three years ago, the FCC threw the book at ABC television for a 2003 NYPD Blue episode in which actress Charlotte Ross’s derriere was visible for a number of seconds. For this offense to the sensibilities of the NYPD Blue audience, the Commission fined 44 ABC affiliates

$27,500 apiece—a $1.21 million penalty all told.

But now the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the decision, declaring it akin to the Commission’s “fleeting expletive” rules, which a Second Circuit panel declared harmful to free speech last July in Fox vs. FCC. That case involved similar punishments for Fox