Tuesday was a good day for private broadcasters and a bad day for those who regulate them. Earlier today, the Second Circuit earlier Tuesday struck down the FCC's indecency policy, finding it "unconstitutionally vague."

The ruling represents a big win for broadcasters such as Fox Television, NBC Universal and other broadcasters who have complained that an FCC crackdown on so-called fleeting obscenities was unfair and violated their First Amendment rights. Click here for the WSJ story; here for an NYT story; here for the WaPo story; here for the opinion, issued by Judges Pierre Leval, Rosemary Pooler and Peter Hall (Judge Pooler wrote the decision). (N.b., the Second Circuit's legal discussion is laced with more profanity than a Chris Rock show. Consider yourselves forewarned.)

Check out Amy Schatz's piece in the Journal for the full background on the case. Essentially, Fox and other networks had challenged the FCC's findings that some stations had violated indecency rules when airing un-bleeped expletives on several awards shows and other programs.

The case has already been to the Supreme Court, which found in April 2009 that the FCC had followed proper administrative procedures in instituting the policy. However, the court did not rule on the policy's constitutionality and remanded the case to the Second Circuit for findings on that.

On Tuesday, the Second Circuit, in a provocative opinion, shot down the FCC policy on vagueness grounds. The court focused chiefly on how little guidance the policy gives to broadcasters on which specific words are permissible, and which aren't. In one of the more profanity-laced court-authored paragraphs we've ever seen, the court wrote:

We agree with the Networks that the indecency policy is impermissibly vague. The first problem arises in the FCC's determination as to which words or expressions are patently offensive. For instance, while the FCC concluded that "bull----t" in a "NYPD Blue" episode was patently offensive, it concluded that "d--k" and "d--khead" were not. . . . The Commission argues that its three-factor "patently offensive" test gives broadcasters fair notice of what it will find indecent. However, in each of these cases, the Commission's reasoning consisted of repetition of one or more of the factors without any discussion of how it applied them.

The big question now: Will the FCC appeal the ruling? The FCC hasn't issued a statement on the ruling or said whether it will appeal.