Comment by solidsnack9000

You have written quite a bit, here. It would be hard to address all of it in one reply and do it justice.

You write:

Maybe Ars is being too rosy-viewed about the causality there, idk. I have no partic feeling one way or the other though I do want to take whatever comfort I can in the notion that the "system of checks and balances" is working.

They are not being rosy about it but you are inferring the wrong lesson from this. There wasn't a judgment or some other finding that the FAA had exceeded their authority and this kind of rule is too broad to be legal: the FAA just decided it was too much trouble to deal with this right now. In the absence of a legal finding about it, they can bring the same rule back next year if they want. This isn't the system of checks and balances working -- the system didn't even get going.

You write:

...there is a price to pay in vigilance, of having to challenge the legality of agency actions if the particular implementation of regulations infringes on constitutional rights.

Is there a constitutional right implicated here? The right to fly planes? It is certainly not a press freedom issue in an obvious way, since it does not target journalism per se -- it has no impact on journalism on foot, on bicycles, &c.