Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-93-01276/USCOURTS-caDC-93-01276-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
American Civil Liberties Union
Petitioner
Brooklyn Producers' Group
Intervenor
David Channon
Intervenor
Federal Communications Commission
Respondent
Media Access New York
Intervenor
National Cable Television Association, Inc.
Intervenor
National Family Legal Foundation
Amicus Curiae
National Law Center for Children and Families
Amicus Curiae
New York Citizens Committee for Responsible Media
Intervenor
United States of America
Respondent

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued In Banc October 19, 1994 Decided June 6, 1995

No. 93-1169

ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY MEDIA;

ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNICATIONS DEMOCRACY;

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY,

PETITIONERS

v.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

RESPONDENTS

NEW YORK CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDIA;

MEDIA ACCESS NEW YORK; BROOKLYN PRODUCERS' GROUP;

DAVID CHANNON; NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION ASSOCIATION, INC.,

INTERVENORS

-

No. 93-1171

DENVER AREA EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS

CONSORTIUM, INC.;

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION,

PETITIONERS

v.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

RESPONDENTS

NEW YORK CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDIA;

MEDIA ACCESS NEW YORK; BROOKLYN PRODUCERS' GROUP;

DAVID CHANNON; NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION ASSOCIATION, INC.,

INTERVENORS

-

No. 93-1270

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ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY MEDIA;

ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNICATIONS DEMOCRACY;

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY,

PETITIONERS

v.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

RESPONDENTS

NEW YORK CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDIA;

MEDIA ACCESS NEW YORK; BROOKLYN PRODUCERS' GROUP;

DAVID CHANNON; NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION ASSOCIATION, INC.,

INTERVENORS

-

No. 93-1276

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION,

PETITIONER

v.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

RESPONDENTS

NEW YORK CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDIA;

MEDIA ACCESS NEW YORK; BROOKLYN PRODUCERS' GROUP;

DAVID CHANNON; NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION ASSOCIATION, INC.,

INTERVENORS

Petitions for Review of Orders of the

Federal Communications Commission

I. Michael Greenberger argued the cause for petitioners. With him

on the briefs were Charles S. Sims, Lisolette E. Mitz, Marjorie

Heins and Arthur B. Spitzer for petitioners Denver Area Educational

Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. and the American Civil

Liberties Union, David A. Bono, Michael K. Isenman and David B.

Goodhand for petitioners the Alliance for Community Media, the

Alliance for Communications Democracy, and People for the American

Way, James N. Horwood for petitioners the Alliance for Community

Media and the Alliance for Communications Democracy, Andrew J.

Schwartzman and Elliot Mincberg for petitioner People for the

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American Way.

Jacob M. Lewis, Attorney, Department of Justice, argued the cause

for respondents. With him on the brief were Frank W. Hunger,

Assistant Attorney General, and Barbara L. Herwig, Attorney,

Department of Justice, William E. Kennard, General Counsel,

Christopher J. Wright, Deputy General Counsel, Daniel M. Armstrong,

Associate General Counsel, and Gregory M. Christopher, Counsel,

Federal Communications Commission.

Robert T. Perry was on the brief for intervenors New York Citizens

Committee for Responsible Media, Media Access New York, Brooklyn

Producers' Group, and David Channon. Daniel L. Brenner, Neal M.

Goldberg and Diane B. Burstein were on the brief for intervenor

National Cable Television Association, Inc. H. Robert Showers was

on the joint brief for amici curiae National Law Center for

Children and Families. With him on the joint brief were James P.

Mueller for National Family Legal Foundation and Paul McGeady for

Morality in Media, Inc.

Before: EDWARDS, Chief Judge, WALD, SILBERMAN, BUCKLEY, WILLIAMS,

GINSBURG, SENTELLE, HENDERSON, RANDOLPH, ROGERS, and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge WALD, in which

Circuit Judge TATEL joins and Circuit Judge ROGERS joins as to Parts

II and III.

Opinion dissenting in part filed by Chief Judge EDWARDS.

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part filed by

Circuit Judge ROGERS.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: This case is here on petitions for

review of two orders of the Federal Communications Commission

implementing section 10 of the Cable Television Consumer Protection

and Competition Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-385, 106 Stat. 1460,

1486 (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. §§ 531, 532(h), 532(j), & 558).

Petitioners are five organizations, some of whose members produce

programming for cable "access" channels; an individual "access"

programmer; and two other groups whose members watch cable

television. The case was argued first to a panel of the court,

which remanded it to the Commission on the grounds that sections

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10(a) and 10(c) violated the freedom of speech clause of the First

Amendment to the Constitution and that section 10(b), and the

Commission's regulations thereunder, posed such serious

constitutional questions that the Commission ought to reconsider

the matter in light of the unconstitutionality of sections 10(a)

and 10(c). Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 10 F.3d 812, 823-

24, 829 (D.C. Cir. 1993). The full court vacated the panel's

judgment. Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 15 F.3d 186 (D.C.

Cir. 1994). On rehearing the case in banc, we sustain section 10

and the Commission's regulations.

I

The Commission gradually began asserting jurisdiction over a

form of cable televisioncommunity antenna television systemsin

the early 1960's. Through that decade and into the next, the pace

of regulation intensified. By 1980, however, the trend had

reversed itself. The cable industry experienced substantial

federal deregulation, driven in no small measure by the Supreme

Court's decision in FCC v. Midwest Video Corp., 440 U.S. 689

(1979). The Court there struck down, as beyond the Commission's

statutory authority over broadcasting, its 1972 rules (as modified

by its 1976 rules) requiring cable operators to dedicate four of

their "channels for public, governmental, educational, and leased

access." Id. at 691. Cable operators "own the physical cable

network and transmit the cable signal to the viewer." Turner

Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2452 (1994). By

"transferr[ing] control of the content of access cable channels

from cable operators to members of the public," the Commission

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hadthe Court held in Midwest Videotransformed cable operators

into "common carriers." 440 U.S. at 700, 701. Congress had

prohibited the Commission from imposing common-carrier obligations

on broadcasters because this would intrude on their editorial

control over programming. Id. at 705. Cable operators were

situated similarly. They shared "with broadcasters a significant

amount of editorial discretion regarding what their programming

will include," and, like broadcasters, could not be burdened with

common carrier obligations without Congress' express direction.

Id. at 707, 709.

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 revived much of

the agency-created system struck down five years earlier in Midwest

Video. The 1984 Act compelled cable operators of systems with more

than thirty-six channels to set aside between 10 and 15 percent of

their channels for commercial use by persons unaffiliated with the

operator. 47 U.S.C. § 532(b). On these "leased access" channels,

the statute forbade the operator from exercising "any editorial

control over" the programming, "except that an operator may

consider such content to the minimum extent necessary to establish

a reasonable price" for the use of the channel. 47 U.S.C. §

532(c)(2). In return, the 1984 Act exempted operators from

criminal and civil liability arising from programs carried on

leased access channels. 47 U.S.C. § 558 (amended 1992). While

thus removing the operators' control over and legal responsibility

for leased access programming, the 1984 Act empowered local

franchising authorities to bar or regulate such programming if, in

the authority's judgment, it "is obscene, or is in conflict with

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1Sec. 10. Children's Protection From Indecent Programming

on Leased Access Channels

community standards in that it is lewd, lascivious, filthy, or

indecent or is otherwise unprotected by the Constitution of the

United States." 47 U.S.C. § 532(h).

The 1984 Act also authorized local franchising authorities to

require, as a condition for a franchise or for the renewal of one,

that operators set aside "channel capacity" for "public,

educational, or governmental use." 47 U.S.C. § 531. Subject to

section 544(d), cable operators were forbidden from exercising any

editorial control over programming shown on these "PEG access"

channels. 47 U.S.C. § 531(e) (amended 1992). Section 544(d)(1)

permitted cable operators and franchise authorities to specify that

cable services would not be provided if they are "obscene or are

otherwise unprotected by the Constitution." As with leased access,

section 558 of the 1984 Act relieved cable operators from criminal

and civil liability for programs carried on PEG channels.

In "order to restrict the viewing of programming which is

obscene or indecent, upon the request of a subscriber," section

544(d)(2) required cable operators to provide equipmentcommonly

known as a "lockbox"enabling the subscriber to block a channel

during particular periods. 47 U.S.C. § 544(d).

In 1992, for reasons we describe below, see infra pp. 19-20,

Congress decided that revisions were needed in the 1984 Act's

treatment of leased access and PEG access channels. Section 10 of

the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of

1992, which is set forth in the margin,1 altered the existing

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(a) Authority to Enforce.Section 612(h) of the

Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 532(h)) is

amended

(1) by inserting "or the cable operator" after

"franchising authority"; and

(2) by adding at the end thereof the following: 

"This subsection shall permit a cable operator to

enforce prospectively a written and published

policy of prohibiting programming that the cable

operator reasonably believes describes or depicts

sexual or excretory activities or organs in a

patently offensive manner as measured by

contemporary community standards.".

(b) Commission Regulations.Section 612 of the

Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 532) is amended

by inserting after subsection (i) (as added by section

9(c) of this Act) the following new subsection:

"(j)(1) Within 120 days following the date of the enactment

of this subsection, the Commission shall promulgate

regulations designed to limit the access of children to

indecent programming, as defined by Commission regulations,

and which cable operators have not voluntarily prohibited

under subsection (h) by

"(A) requiring cable operators to place on a single channel

all indecent programs, as identified by program providers,

intended for carriage on channels designated for commercial

use under this section;

"(B) requiring cable operators to block such single channel

unless the subscriber requests access to such channel in

writing; and

"(C) requiring programmers to inform cable operators if the

program would be indecent as defined by Commission

regulations.

"(2) Cable operators shall comply with the

regulations promulgated pursuant to paragraph (1).".

(c) Prohibits System Use.Within 180 days following the

date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal

Communications Commission shall promulgate such regulations

as may be necessary to enable a cable operator of a cable

system to prohibit the use, on such system, of any channel

capacity of any public, educational, or governmental access

facility for any programming which contains obscene

material, sexually explicit conduct, or material soliciting

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or promoting unlawful conduct.

(d) Conforming Amendment.Section 638 of the

Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 558) is amended by

striking the period at the end and inserting the following: 

"unless the program involves obscene material.".

Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992,

Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 10, 106 Stat. 1460, 1486 (1992) (codified

at 47 U.S.C. §§ 531, 532(h), 532(j) & 558). 

system in several ways. Section 10(a) permitted a cable operator

to refuse to carry leased access programming the operator

"reasonably believes describes or depicts sexual or excretory

activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by

contemporary community standards." Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 10(a),

106 Stat. 1460, 1486 (1992) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 532(h)).

In order "to limit the access of children to indecent programming,"

section 10(b) directed the Commission to prescribe rules requiring

cable operators who choose to carry indecent programming on leased

access channels to place such programs on a separate channel and to

block the channel until the subscriber, in writing, requests

unblocking. Id. § 10(b) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 532(j)).

Section 10(c) required the Commission to promulgate regulations

enabling cable operators to prohibit the use of PEG access channels

for "any programming which contains obscene material, sexually

explicit conduct, or material soliciting or promoting unlawful

conduct." Id. § 10(c) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 531).

Section 10(d) eliminated cable operators' immunity from criminal

and civil liability for obscene programming shown on access

channels. Id. § 10(d) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 558).

In early 1993, the Commission released two Reports and Orders

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2With respect to leased access channels, the 1992 Act also

directed the Commission to determine the maximum reasonable rates

for leased access use, to establish reasonable terms and

conditions for such use, including those for billing and

collection, and to create procedures for expedited resolution of

rate or carriage disputes. Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 9, 106 Stat.

1460, 1484-86 (1992) (codified at 47 U.S.C. §

532(c)(4)(A)(i)-(iii)). The 1984 Act had permitted operators to

negotiate with programmers the prices and terms for leased

access. DANIEL L. BRENNER, ET AL., CABLE TELEVISION AND OTHER NONBROADCAST

VIDEO § 6.05, at 6-50, 6-57 (1994).

For PEG access programming, the 1984 Act authorized local

adopting regulations to implement section 10. In the first, the

Commission issued regulations implementing sections 10(a) and

10(b), the provisions applying to leased access channels. The

Commission defined "indecent" programming in terms nearly identical

to those contained in the statute: "programming that describes or

depicts sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently

offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards

for the cable medium." Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable

Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 7990,

7993 (1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(g)). Leased

access programmers were required to inform the cable operator

which, if any, of their programs fell into that category. Id. (to

be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(d)). Mirroring the statute, the

regulations authorized private cable operators to refuse to carry

indecent programming on leased access channels; or, if they

decided to do so, to segregate that material on a blocked channel.

Id. (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(a)). A cable operator

must satisfy a subscriber's written request to receive a blocked

channel within thirty days. Id. (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. §

76.701(c)).2

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franchising authorities to determine minimum PEG requirements,

including allocation of channel capacity to users, availability

of equipment and facilities, charges for costs, and requirements

that PEG access channels be included in the basic cable tier. 

Robert F. Copple, Cable Television and the Allocation of

Regulatory Power: A Study of Governmental Demarcation and Roles,

44 FED. COMM. L.J. 1, 147-48 (1991). The 1992 Act explicitly

authorized franchising authorities, when awarding a franchise, to

"require adequate assurance that the cable operator will provide

adequate public, educational, and governmental access channel

capacity, facilities, or financial support." Pub. L. No. 102-

385, § 7(b), 106 Stat. 1460, 1483 (1992) (codified at 47 U.S.C. §

541(1)(4)(B)). 

3The regulations define "material soliciting or promoting

unlawful conduct" as "material that is otherwise proscribed by

law." Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable Consumer

Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 19,623,

19,626 (1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.702). 

The Commission's second Report and Order contained regulations

implementing section 10(c), which applies to PEG access channels.

These regulations authorized cable operators to prohibit

programming on PEG access channels if it "contains obscene

material, indecent material ..., or material soliciting or

promoting unlawful conduct."3 Implementation of Section 10 of the

Cable Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg.

19,623, 19,626 (1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.702). The

regulations permitted cable operators to require PEG access

programmers to certify that their programming contains no material

in these categories. Id.

II

A

Obscenity has no constitutional protection, and the government

may ban it outright in certain media, or in all. R.A.V. v. City of

St. Paul, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 2545 (1992). But an "indecent" program,

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4An indecent program is one that "describes or depicts

sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive

manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the

cable medium." Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable

Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg.

7990, 7993 (1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(g)). As

all agree, this definition of indecency does not encompass all of

the elements of obscenity. A work is legally obscene, according

to Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973), if (a) "the

average person, applying contemporary community standards" would

find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient

interest, ...;" (b) "the work depicts or describes, in a patently

offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the

applicable state law;" and (c) "the work, taken as a whole, lacks

serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." 

as the Commission and the statute define the term, is not

necessarily an obscene program.4 While the government may

nevertheless restrict the showing of indecent programs, it may do

so only in a manner consistent with the First Amendment. See Sable

Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126

(1989). If decisions of cable operators not to carry indecent

programs on leased or PEG access channels, decisions sections 10(a)

and 10(c) permit, were treated as decisions of the government, the

Commission and the United States would be hard put to defend the

constitutionality of these provisions.

So far as sections 10(a) and 10(c) and the corresponding

regulations are concerned, the case therefore turns on the presence

or absence of "state action." The First Amendment's command that

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or

of the press" restricts only the government. It does not control

private conduct. Before one may determine whether actions taken by

cable operators with respect to indecent programming on leased and

PEG access channels comport with the First Amendment, one must

decide whether those actions may be attributed to the government.

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Petitioners initially deny that the case presents any serious

state action problem: Congress enacted section 10(a) and section

10(c), and a federal agency issued regulations putting the

provisions into effect; these were official actions of the

government; hence state action exists. Matters are not quite so

simple, however. If the government had commanded a particular

result, if it had ordered cable operators to ban all indecent

programs on access channels, the operators' compliance would

plainly be attributable to the government. See Action for

Children's Television v. FCC, 932 F.2d 1504, 1508-09 (D.C. Cir.

1991), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 1281 (1992). State action would

exist for the same reason that the government's compelling private

entities to conduct searches renders the ensuing searches subject

to the Fourth Amendment. See Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives'

Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 614 (1989). But sections 10(a) and 10(c) do

not command. Cable operators may carry indecent programs on their

access channels, or they may not. It is true that the Supreme

Court has found state action even though legislation, rather than

compelling a result, left the matter to the discretion of private

actors. Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., 459 U.S. 116 (1982), and

Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982),

are such decisions. But neither Larkin nor Loretto resembles the

case before us. State action existed in both of those cases

because the government conferred on private parties power that

"traditionally [had been] the exclusive prerogative" of the

government (San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States

Olympic Comm., 483 U.S. 522, 544 (1987)), in Larkin the power to

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veto liquor licenses, in Loretto the power to enter and occupy

private property without the owner's consent. By contrast,

determining what programs shall be shown on a cable television

system is not traditionally within the exclusive province of

government at any level. That section 10 is a federal statute

authorizing action by private cable operators is therefore not

itself sufficient to trigger the First Amendment. See Flagg Bros.

v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 165-66 (1978).

The question remains whether section 10 and the regulations

establish a "sufficiently close nexus" between the government and

cable operators regarding indecent programming on access channels

so that state action is present. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison

Co., 419 U.S. 345, 351 (1974); Skinner, 489 U.S. at 615. We agree

with petitioners that the question must be answered in view of the

precise nature of their objection. Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991,

1003 (1982). But what is the nature of their objection? One frame

of reference reveals "a battle for supremacy between the asserted

rights of private persons." Robert J. Glennon, Jr. & John E.

Nowak, A Functional Analysis of the Fourteenth Amendment "State

Action" Requirement, 1976 SUP. CT. REV. 221, 230. That is,

petitioners are merely complaining about section 10(a)'s and

section 10(c)'s restoring to cable operators' their option to

reject indecent programming on their cable systems. Cable

operators "are entitled to the protection of the speech and press

provisions of the First Amendment." Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc.

v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. at 2456. When an operator decides what

programming will appear on its system, the operator engages in free

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5We express no view on whether the provisions of the 1984

and 1992 Acts requiring cable operators to set aside leased

access channels and permitting franchising authorities to force

operators to set aside PEG access channels infringe upon the

First Amendment rights of cable operators or programmers. 

speech. See City of Los Angeles v. Preferred Communications, Inc.,

476 U.S. 488, 494 (1986); FCC v. Midwest Video Corp., 440 U.S. at

707. It is therefore easy to see how sections 10(a) and 10(c), by

giving operators editorial control over indecent programming on

their systems' access channels, promote the operators' freedom of

speech.5 Petitioners, on the other hand, do not spell out in their

briefs exactly how the same provisions retard their freedom of

speech. We gather from their submissions to the Commission that

they have members who wish to watch programs on access channels

describing or depicting "sexual or excretory activities or organs

in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary

community standards for the cable medium"; and that the

programmers who count themselves among the petitioners wish to

produce this sort of material for television. These interests will

be damaged, petitioners told the Commission, because sections 10(a)

and 10(c) will reduce the amount of indecent programming on cable

access channels. The idea appears to be that if legislation

altering the existing state of affairs threatens to lessen the

quantity of indecent speech, the government bears the legal

responsibility for the private decisions causing that result.

The question naturally arisesless indecent programming as

compared to what? The status quo ante? If the state of affairs

under the 1984 Act were the baseline from which to measure, as

petitioners assume without stating why, their assessment of section

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10's impact might be accurate. The 1984 Act did not permit cable

operators to decline indecent programming on access channels;

after the 1992 amendment, they had that option. But what of the

period before 1984? The Supreme Court's 1979 decision in Midwest

Video relieved cable operators of the obligation, then imposed by

regulation, to provide leased access and PEG access channels.

Under those early regulations, operators were requiredwith respect

to both types of access channelsto establish rules prohibiting the

"presentation of ... obscene and indecent matter." 47 C.F.R. §

76.256(d)(1)-(2) (1976); see Midwest Video, 440 U.S. at 693 n.4.

As compared to the situation before the 1979 Midwest Video

decision, when indecent programming on access channels was entirely

forbidden, section 10 of the 1992 Act permits morenot lesssuch

programming. Still another comparison presents itself. Rather

than focusing only on the pre-1992 and post-1992 situations with

respect to access channels, one might contrast access channels with

other cable channels. Cable operators have always had the

discretion not to carry indecent programming on their non-access

channels. Yet no one would contend that the First Amendment

constrained the operator's editorial judgment in this regard. We

therefore cannot agree with the premise implicit in petitioners'

argumentsthat the 1984 Act gave rise to the constitutionally

proper quantity of indecent access programming. The First

Amendment did not compel the 1984 Act, and it certainly did not

compel prohibiting cable operators from exercising any editorial

control over access programming.

This, we believe, places in the proper perspective

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petitioners' charge that section 10 of the 1992 Act "establishes"

a "procedural scheme of private censorship." Brief for Petitioners

at 20, 27. If "censorship" is understood as editorial control,

petitioners are partly correct, but their description does not

translate into state action. The 1984 Act also initiated what may

be described as a system of "private censorship." From 1984 until

1992, Congress gave private parties in charge of programming on

leased access channels complete control, free from any operators'

oversight, regarding what the cable television audience could see

on these channels. During that eight-year period, programmers were

the ones exercising control over the content of access programming.

In petitioners' terms, they were the ones acting as "private

censors." When the 1992 Act gave cable operators the option of

vetoing decisions of access programmers to televise indecent

programs, it simply adjusted editorial authority between two

private groups.

As we see it, therefore, petitioners have merely discovered an

inherent characteristic of cable systems: the more discretion a

cable operator has over what will appear on its system, the less

discretion resides in those who have been given access to the

operator's system (and vice versa). To suppose that whenever

Congress restores to cable operators editorial discretion an

earlier statute had removed, the operators' exercise of this

discretion becomes state action subject to the First Amendment, not

only would disable the legislature from correcting what it

perceives as mistakes in legislation, but also would deter it from

experimenting with new methods of regulating. No analogous state

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action decision of the Supreme Courtincluding Reitman v. Mulkey,

387 U.S. 369 (1967), from which the original panel took "specific

guidance" and on which it relied almost exclusively for its state

action analysis (Alliance for Community Media, 10 F.3d at 818-

22)has ever gone so far. 

Reitman may have leapt to mind because it too involved

legislation modifying statutory restrictions on private parties.

But not much can be made of the case for our purposes, certainly

not nearly as much as the original panel made of it. Petitioners

seem to share our judgment. Reitman is cited but once in their in

banc briefs, and then only in a footnote to support the notion that

it embodies a state action standard no different than Blum v.

Yaretsky, which we will discuss more fully in a moment. Brief for

Petitioners at 32 n.16. Reitman began as a suit between private

parties, with the plaintiffs claiming they had been denied an

apartment on the basis of their race in violation of a state

housing law. In 1964, while the suit was pending, California

voters approved Proposition 14, a state constitutional amendment

(Art. I, § 26) prohibiting the state or any subdivision or agency

thereof from denying or limiting the right of any person to sell,

lease or rent his real property to any "persons as he, in his

absolute discretion, chooses." 387 U.S. at 371. One effect of

adding § 26 to the state constitution was to repeal the state law

prohibiting private racial discrimination in housing. If this were

all § 26 accomplished, the case might have come out differently:

"simple repeal or modification of desegregation or

antidiscrimination laws, without more, never has been viewed as

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embodying a presumptively invalid racial classification." Crawford

v. Board of Educ., 458 U.S. 527, 539 (1982). But in Reitman,

Justice White, speaking for four other Justices, demonstrated the

fallacy of thinking § 26 had only the effect of repealing

antidiscrimination legislation. 387 U.S. at 376. "The section

struck more deeply and more widely." Id. at 377. "Private

discriminations in housing ... enjoyed a far different status

[after enactment of § 26] than was true before passage of [the

state] statutes" outlawing private racial discrimination. Id.

After § 26, minority groups who sought new fair housing laws in

California would somehow have to get the state constitution amended

before they could even attempt to convince the legislature to enact

such laws, while those seeking other legislation could proceed

directly to the legislature. By placing this impediment in the way

of new anti-discrimination measures, § 26 itself discriminated

against minority groups, and for that reason constituted action of

the state forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.

This has long been the accepted understanding of Reitman.

See, e.g., DAVID P. CURRIE, THE CONSTITUTION IN THE SUPREME COURT 420

(1990); LAURENCE H. TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 1700 (2d ed.

1988); Charles L. Black, Jr., The Supreme Court, 1966

TermForeword: "State Action," Equal Protection, and California's

Proposition 14, 81 HARV. L. REV. 69, 75, 82 (1967); Robert J.

Glennon, Jr. & John E. Nowak, A Functional Analysis of the

Fourteenth Amendment "State Action" Requirement, 1976 SUP. CT. REV.

221, 247; Kenneth L. Karst & Harold W. Horowitz, Reitman v.

Mulkey: A Telophase of Substantive Equal Protection, 1967 SUP. CT.

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6The panel opinion deemed it "not critical" that "Reitman

involved an amendment to the state constitution that also banned

future enactment of fair housing laws without an additional

amendment of the state constitution." Alliance for Community

Media, 10 F.3d at 820 n.8. The Supreme Court in Reitman and in

Crawford, and each of the authors cited in the text, thought the

opposite. 

7Judge Wald mixes apples and bricks in her four formulations

of the combined effect of § 10(a) and § 10(b). Dissent at 5. 

Take for example, her number 1: " "an operator must ban, or in

the alternative must block' " indecent programming on leased

access channels. Operators who block are necessarily operators

who have not banned indecent speech. They are carrying such

programs on their systems and are leaving to their subscribers

REV. 39, 51.6 So understood, the decision cannot support a finding

of state action here. Congress may modify section 10 of the 1992

Act anytime it chooses, just as it modified the related provisions

of the 1984 Act. There are no special impediments to its doing so.

Apparently recognizing this, petitioners invoke not Reitman,

but the statement in Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. at 1004, that

"although the factual setting of each case will be significant,"

the government "normally" can be held accountable for a private

decision "only when it has exercised coercive power or has provided

such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the

choice must in law be deemed to be that of the [government]." The

Court followed this qualified declaration with another

qualification: "Mere approval of or acquiescence in the

initiatives of a private party is not sufficient to justify holding

the State responsible for those initiatives under the terms of the

Fourteenth Amendment." Blum, 457 U.S. at 1004-05.

The "coercive power" element in the Blum formulation has no

application here for reasons already suggested. Rather than coerce

cable operators, section 10 gives them a choice.7 Section 10(b)'s

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the choice of tuning in. Despite all the fancy footwork, the

formulations merely report that (1) under these provisions

operators now have the editorial discretion to carry or not to

carry indecent programming on their leased access channels; and

(2) if they opt to carry such programming, they have to comply

with § 10(b). To conclude from this that the operators'

decisions are state action is the same as saying that if you are

deciding whether to enter a particular line of business regulated

by the state, your decision whether to enter the business is

"state action." You "must" comply with regulations, or you

"must" stay out. Or closer to home, Judge Wald would find state

action when an Indiana bar decides whether to have nude

dancingin her formulation, the bar either must ban nude dancing

or it must block children and others who do not consent to

watching the show. Cf. Barnes v. Glen Theatres, Inc., 111 S. Ct.

2456, 2461 (1991). 

segregation and blocking requirements apply to "cable operators

[who] have not voluntarily prohibited" indecent programming on

leased access channels. Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 10(b), 106 Stat.

1460, 1486 (1992) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 532(j)(1))

(emphasis added). The Commission too put the matter in those

terms. Its first Report and Order states that any prohibition of

indecent programming on leased access channels will be "voluntary,

not mandatory" and that Congress did not intend cable operators to

"act as involuntary government surrogates." First Report and

Order, 8 F.C.C.R. 998, 1003 ¶ 30 (1993). Section 10(c) is to the

same effect. It instructs the Commission to promulgate regulations

enablingnot requiringcable operators to prohibit indecent

programming on PEG access channels (Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 10(c),

106 Stat. 1460, 1486 (1992) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 531))

and the Commission's implementing regulation provides that cable

operators "may" prohibit indecent programming on PEG access

channels. Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable Consumer

Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 19,623, 19,626

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(1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.702).

As to the remaining portion of the Blum formula, petitioners

offer three ways in which section 10 "has provided such significant

encouragement" to cable operators not to carry indecent programming

on their PEG and leased access channels that state action must be

found. The first borrows from the original panel opinion's

assertion "that the immediate objective of the 1992 Act is to

suppress indecent material and limit its transmission on access

channels" and that "the government wishes to suppress" such

material on access channels. Alliance for Community Media, 10 F.3d

at 820; Brief for Petitioners at 28. There is no doubt that

section 10 embodies an objective, but it is one rather different

than that described in the passages just quoted. The immediate

aimall that can be discerned from the language of the statuteis

to give cable operators the prerogative not to carry indecent

programming on their access channels. Experience under the 1984

Act moved Congress to legislate as it did.

"The problem," Senator Helms stated during the floor debate,

"is that cable companies are required by law to carry, on leased

access channels, any and every program that comes along," including

programs that consist of a wide variety of highly indecent

material. 138 CONG. REC. S646 (daily ed. Jan. 30, 1992). The

Senator described leased access programming in New York City that

"depicts men and women stripping completely nude"; another

featuring people performing oral sex; a channel with ads promoting

"incest, bestiality, [and] even rape"; and a channel in Puerto

Rico carrying the Playboy Channel. Id. As he also pointed out,

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leased access channels are "not pay channels, they are often in the

basic cable package." Id. Senator Thurmond mentioned leased

access channels with "numerous sex shows and X-rated previews of

hard-core homosexual films," as well as channels with ads for phone

lines letting listeners eavesdrop on acts of incest. Id. at S648.

PEG channels were also being used, for example, "to basically

solicit prostitution through easily discernible shams such as

escort services, fantasy parties, where live participants, through

two-way conversation through the telephone ... [solicit] illegal

activities." Id. at S649 (statement of Sen. Fowler); see also id.

at S650 (statement of Sen. Wirth) (agreeing that public access

"clearly ... has ... been abused").

Before the Commission, many commenters recognized that

indecent programs had been transmitted on cable access channels,

both leased and PEG. Time Warner Entertainment informed the

Commission that its New York City cable subsidiary carries a leased

access program ("Midnight Blue") which "include[s] excerpts from

sexually explicit video cassettes and films showing in graphic

detail intercourse, masturbation and other sex acts," and which

advertises "sex-oriented products and services, such as "escort

services,' "dial-a-porn' telephone lines and Screw Magazine

("Midnight Blue's' print counterpart)." Comments of Time Warner

Entertainment Co., L.P., at 3 (Dec. 7, 1992). The company reported

that its leased access channel on which Midnight Blue appears is

"usually fully booked with sexually explicit programming" every day

"from 10:00 p.m. to 4:30 a.m.," and "the demand for additional time

remains high." Id. The record before the Commission showed that

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8"[T]here is surely a less vital interest in the uninhibited

exhibition of material that is on the borderline between

pornography and artistic expression than in the free

dissemination of ideas of social and political significance...." 

Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U.S. 50, 61 (1976); 

see FCC v. Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. 726, 743 (1978). 

indecent programming was also a problem on PEG channels. For

example, the Commission was informed that programming transmitted

over the public access channel serving the City of Tampa, Florida,

included "visual depiction[s] of male and female nudity ...

simulated sexual activity, and/or sexually related physical contact

between performers and audience members." Comments of City of

Tampa, at 2 (Dec. 7, 1992). A Tampa viewer described turning on

her local public access channel in prime time and seeing "[t]otally

nude women ... squatting and gyrating so that their genitals were

in full view," and "a tape of a totally naked man dancing and

screaming obscenities." Comments of Virginia B. Bogue, at 1 (Dec.

4, 1992). And one large cable operator noted that a public access

channel on one of its systems transmitted a program "in which an

access user, frontally nude, urinated on a photograph of the

President of the United States." Comments of Continental

Cablevision, Inc., at 4 n.3 (Dec. 7, 1992).

Congress could consider itself accountable for the appearance

of these and other such programs. The 1984 Act made them possible

by compelling cable operators to set aside leased access channels

and, at the franchising authorities' direction, PEG access

channels, and by barring the operators from exercising any

editorial judgment over what would be shown there. Whatever may be

said in support of indecent programming on access channels,8

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9In light of Crawford, 458 U.S. at 538, a State's "mere

repeal of race-related legislation or policies that were not

required by the Federal Constitution in the first place" does not

make private individuals state actors so that their treatment of

others on the basis of race is governed by the Fourteenth

Amendment. By analogy, the Constitution did not require Congress

to bar operators from exercising editorial control over indecent

programming on access channels; and, contrary to Judge Wald

(Dissent at 7 n.4), when Congress removed the bar in 1992 it did

not transform operators into state actors. 

Congress surely does not have to promote it. In dealing with cable

television, Congress, no less than states dealing with relations

between races, cannot "be committed irrevocably to legislation that

has proved unsuccessful or even harmful in practice."9 Crawford v.

Board of Educ., 458 U.S. at 539. Section 10 of the 1992 Act

extricated Congress from its promotional role, not by banning

indecent programming on access channels, but by permitting cable

operators to "police their own systems," which the 1984 Act had

prevented them from doing. 138 CONG. REC. S650 (daily ed. Jan. 30,

1992) (statement of Sen. Wirth).

We have no doubt that among the Members of Congress who voted

for the 1992 Act there are those who would applaud any cable

operator's decision not to carry indecent programming on access

channels, or for that matter, on any channel. Even if we equated

the view of some Members with the view of a majority, and even if

we pretended that their preferences had somehow manifested

themselves in statutory language, this still would not be

sufficient to transform a particular operator's decision not to

carry indecent programs on its access channels into a decision of

the United States. "Mere approval of or acquiescence in the

initiatives of a private party," Blum reminds us, cannot "justify

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10For instance, it cannot be that because access channels

came into existence as a result of governmental action, the

private day-to-day decisionsby programmers or by cable

operatorsabout what will be shown on those channels embody state

action. The federal government may create corporations but the

resulting quangos are not, for that reason alone, to be treated

as governmental rather than private actors. Lebron v. National

Railroad Passenger Corp., 115 S. Ct. 961, 974-75 (1995); San

Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Comm.,

483 U.S. at 543 n.23; Ralis v. RFE/RL, Inc., 770 F.2d 1121, 1125

(D.C. Cir. 1985). 

holding the State responsible for those initiatives," 457 U.S. at

1004-05; see Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. at 164.

Nor does state action result simply because legislation

"encourages" the private initiative in the sense of making it

possible.10 Blum rejected a procedural due process challenge to

decisions of state-subsidized private nursing homes, made without

a hearing, to downgrade the level of treatment for patients on

Medicaid. Federal Medicaid regulations required nursing homes to

maintain different treatment levels and to transfer patients

whenever necessary; when a nursing home downgraded a patient's

treatment, the State reduced the patient's Medicaid payments. 457

U.S. at 994-95. In Blum, the "State was indirectly involved in the

transfer decisions ... because a primary goal of the State in

regulating nursing homes was to keep costs down by transferring

patients from intensive treatment centers to less expensive

facilities." Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 841 (1982).

"State and federal regulations encouraged the nursing homes to

transfer patients to less expensive facilities when appropriate."

Id. The nursing homes' transfer decisions were nevertheless private

decisions, dependent upon the medical judgment of physicians, and

thus not governed by the Constitution. Blum, 457 U.S. at 1012. So

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11Judge Wald would disregard Blum on the ground that the

complaint there challenged the decisions of private actors, while

the petition here challenges a federal statute and its

implementing regulations. Dissent at 6-7. There is nothing to

this. The private actors in Blum made their decisions pursuant

to detailed state and federal regulations, Blum, 457 U.S. 993-95,

and the Court evaluated the regulations to determine whether they

dictated the private decisions at issue, id. at 1006-10. 

12This argument could not supply state action with respect

to section 10(c)'s authorization to operators to prohibit

indecent programming on PEG channels. Section 10(b)'s

segregation and blocking requirement applies to leased access

channels only. We cannot imagine how that requirement could

influence an operator's decision about allowing indecent

programming on PEG channels. 

too with section 10 of the 1992 Act, which facilitates cable

operators' editorial control over indecent programming, but does

not dictate the outcome or the criteria operators may use in

exercising their judgment about whether such programming appears on

their access channels.11

The second way in which section 10 satisfies the Blum

formulation, according to petitioners, is by creating "financial

incentives" for operators not to carry indecent programming. The

idea is that rather than incurring the costs associated with

section 10(b)'s requirements, cable operators will opt for the less

expensive alternative of simply banning indecent programming from

leased access channels.12 To support this prediction, petitioners

quote a cable operator's comment to the Commission:

Restricting indecent programming on leased access

channels to a single channel and scrambling such

programming to prevent reception unless the subscriber

has affirmatively requested access will impose

significant costs on the cable operator. If operators

are not permitted to recover these costs in full, they

will be forced, as a practical matter, to adopt instead

a policy prohibiting all such programming. The single

channel requirement would thereby be converted into a de

facto ban.

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13On this unfounded prediction, on this single assertion,

rests the entirety of Judge Wald's reasoning that § 10(a)

constitutes state action for leased access channels. But what of

PEG access channels, where operators have discretion under §

10(c) to carry indecent programming without any segregation and

blocking? Judge Wald, without the support of Chief Judge

Edwards, or Judge Rogers, offers a different rationale for

detecting state action in § 10(c)that the provision is a

"content-based regulation of protected speech." Dissent at 28. 

Of course that thoroughly begs the question. The First Amendment

protects speech not from private interference but only from

governmental restraints. One cannot say of § 10(c) that

operators might be restricting "protected speech" until one first

Comments of Continental Cablevisions, Inc., at 10 (Dec. 7, 1992).

One notices immediately the significant condition in the

comment"If operators are not permitted to recover these costs in

full...." Nothing in section 10 specifies that the costs

associated with segregation and blocking must be borne by cable

operators, and the Commission has yet to consider the matter. The

Commission has determined to take up this and related issues in its

cable rate regulation proceeding upon the final resolution of this

litigation. First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. 998, 1003 ¶ 32 n.29

(1993); In the Matter of Implementation of Sections of the Cable

Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, Rate

Regulation, 8 F.C.C.R. 5631, 5943 ¶ 502 n.1293 (1993). The

situation might well be different if the Commission were to adopt

a policy that created a significant economic disincentive for

operators to segregate and block indecent programming.

Judge Wald, in her dissent, also predicts that because section

10(b)'s segregation-and-blocking arrangement is "technically and

administratively cumbersome," operators will choose to ban indecent

speech. Dissent at 8-9. Hence, there is "state action" with

respect to section 10(a) and leased access channels.13 We do not

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makes the threshold determination that the actions of the

operators are attributable to the government. Otherwise,

whenever cable operators make content-based choices not to carry

particular programming on any channel, there would be state

action because the speech is "protected" and because the

governing statute does not force the operators to carry it. 

14The Commission mentioned "technical" problems but these

dealt with timingthat is, with how quickly operators could

implement segregation and blocking. In order to avoid any such

problems, the Commission allowed the operators 120 days to

implement blocking mechanisms and procedures. First Order and

Report, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009. In this litigation the sufficiency

of that time period is not challenged. 

understand the "technically" part of this proposition. The

comments of the National Cable Television Association, Inc., the

principal trade association for the cable television industry,

mentioned no technical difficulties in implementing section 10(b).

And for good reason. Every cable system that has premium or

pay-per-view channels already is constantly blocking and unblocking

them and thus has the technical capability to perform this task.

Perhaps there are smaller systems that do not have such channels.

But the Commission took care of that difficulty in its First Order:

it gave operators the choice of installing lockboxes (see infra p.

36) and retaining the key or numeric code until the customer

requests unblocking. First Order and Report, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009

n.46.14 As to Judge Wald's point about "administrative" burdens,

this is a matter of costs, of who should bear the financial burden

of implementing section 10(b). As we have already mentioned, that

question will be determined in future proceedings. In deciding

this facial challenge to the regulations we are unwilling to

speculate about the outcome of those proceedings. Still less are

we willing to assume that the burden of implementing section 10(b)

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15Petitioners contend that section 10(d) is "particularly

suspect" because it covers programming that merely "involves

obscene material." Brief for Petitioners at 31 n.15 (italics

added); see supra note 1. As petitioners acknowledge, however,

the Commission's unchallenged interpretation of the statutory

phrase is that operators lose immunity only for material that "is

unprotected by the first amendment." First Report and Order, 8

represents "such significant encouragement" (Blum, 457 U.S. at

1004) that the operators' choice must be deemed to be the choice of

the government. The record, sparse as it is on this point,

contains material pointing in the opposite direction. 

Time Warner's request, which the Commission granted, to allow

operators "to provide an additional blocked leased channel for

indecent programming if the first channel becomes full," is at odds

with petitioners' and Judge Wald's prediction that the cost of

implementing section 10(b) will force operators to ban indecent

programming altogether. First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009

¶ 66. Even smaller cable systems were worried about their blocked

leased access channels filling up, a concern that makes sense only

if they anticipated carrying indecent programming. The burden was

on petitioners, as the complaining parties, to show that because of

section 10(b), the decisions of operators not to carry this

material on leased access channels may be laid at the feet of the

government. Blum, 457 U.S. at 1004; San Francisco Arts &

Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Comm., 483 U.S. at 547

n.29. And it is a burden they have not sustained.

Petitioners' third way of establishing state action relies on

section 10(d) of the 1992 Act, the provision removing the civil and

criminal immunity of cable operators for obscene programming

carried on their access channels.15 Section 10(d), they say,

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F.C.C.R. at 1005 ¶ 44 n.40. 

providesin the words of Blum, 457 U.S. at 1004"such significant

encouragement" to operators to bar indecent programming on access

channels that their "choice must in law be deemed to be that of

the" government. Blum itself rejected a similar argument.

Although state regulations penalized nursing homes for failing to

"discharge or transfer patients whose continued stay [was]

inappropriate," the regulations did not themselves dictate the

decision to discharge or transfer. Id. at 1009. Therefore,

"penalties imposed for violating the regulations add[ed] nothing to

[the patients'] claim of state action." Id. at 1010. The same

logic applies here. Because obscenity is not constitutionally

protected, Congress may prohibit its showing on access channels.

See, e.g., Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492

U.S. at 124. Nothing in section 10(a), section 10(b), or section

10(c) compels cable operators to refuse to carry indecent

programming. The matter is left to their editorial discretion.

With discretion comes responsibility. Section 10(d) thus imposes

on cable operators the same liability for obscene access

programming that operators long have had with respect to other

programming on channels they control. 47 U.S.C. § 558 (amended

1992). Under the 1992 Act, whenever an operator chooses to carry

indecent programming on any channel, it does so against the

backdrop of Congress's prohibition against obscenity on cable

television. That a cable operator takes this into account in

deciding which programs to carryon any channeldoes not convert

its refusal to carry indecent programming into state action. See

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16Three other courts of appeals have found no state action

in comparable contexts. Dial Info. Servs. Corp. v. Thornburgh,

938 F.2d 1535 (2d Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 966

(1992); Information Providers' Coalition v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866

(9th Cir. 1991); Carlin Communication, Inc. v. Southern Bell

Tel. & Tel. Co., 802 F.2d 1352 (11th Cir. 1986). Acting pursuant

to a federal statute, telephone companies furnishing billing

services to dial-a-porn purveyors blocked their indecent messages

until customers, in writing, specifically requested access. The

purveyors challenged the statute as a prior restraint in

violation of the First Amendment because it required them to

classify their messages based on content. The Second and Ninth

Circuits found no state action. Dial Info. Servs. Corp., 938

F.2d at 1539, 1543; Information Providers' Coalition, 928 F.2d

at 871, 877. Both courts of appeals ruled that because the

government did not compel telephone companies to supply billing

services to dial-a-porn purveyorswhich is what triggered the

statute's blocking and classification requirementsthe telephone

companies were not state actors and the First Amendment did not

apply. Dial Info. Servs. Corp., 938 F.2d at 1535; Information

Providers' Coalition, 928 F.2d at 877. In Carlin Communication,

Inc., the Eleventh Circuit held there was no state action in a

telephone company's decision not to offer sellers of sexually

explicit messages access to its prerecorded message service, even

though a state regulatory agency studied the company's proposed

policy, issued an order "strongly approving" the policy, and

authorized a tariff amendment incorporating it. Carlin

Communication, Inc., 802 F.2d at 1358, 1359.

These decisions cannot be distinguished on the ground that

with respect to cable television, operators must accept

non-indecent access programming. What mattersin the dial-a-porn

cases and in this oneis whether the government has so injected

itself into the private actor's decision triggering federal

regulation that the decision may, for purposes of constitutional

analysis, be treated as the government's. 

Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U.S. 46, 60 (1989); Carlin

Communications, Inc. v. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co., 827 F.2d

1291, 1297 n.6 (9th Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1029

(1988).16

B

Petitioners think that by calling leased access and PEG

channels "public forums" they may avoid the state action problem

and invoke the line of First Amendment decisions restricting

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17See, e.g., International Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness

v. Lee, 112 S. Ct. at 2703 (airports owned by Port Authority of

New York and New Jersey); United States v. Kokinda, 497 U.S.

governmental control of speakers because of the location of their

speech. But a "public forum," or even a "nonpublic forum," in

First Amendment parlance is government property. It is not, for

instance, a bulletin board in a supermarket, devoted to the

public's use, or a page in a newspaper reserved for readers to

exchange messages, or a privately owned and operated computer

network available to all those willing to pay the subscription fee.

The Supreme Court uses the "public forum" designation, or lack

thereof, to judge "restrictions that the government seeks to place

on the use of its property." International Soc'y for Krishna

Consciousness v. Lee, 112 S. Ct. 2701, 2705 (1992) (italics added).

State action is present because the property is the government's

and the government is doing the restricting. In this line of

cases, regulation of speech on government property traditionally

used for public expressionstreets and parks, for instancegets the

highest level of scrutiny. Id.; Christian Knights of the Ku Klux

Klan v. District of Columbia, 972 F.2d 365, 372 (D.C. Cir. 1992).

These are the typical "public forums." Regulation of government

property opened for expressive activity, although not traditionally

so used, gets the same First Amendment treatment. International

Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, 112 S. Ct. at 2705. "Nonpublic"

forumsnonpublic, that is, in the respect that the government has

not opened its property to the publicare treated less stringently.

Id. All of the Supreme Court's "public forum" cases fall into one

of these three categories.17 Access channels fall into none of

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720, 723 (1990) (sidewalk belonging to post office); Cornelius

v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 792 (1985)

(fundraising campaign for federal employees established pursuant

to executive order); United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171 (1983)

(sidewalk in front of Supreme Court building); Perry Educ. Ass'n

v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 39 (1982) (school

district's internal mail system); Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828,

830 (1976) (United States Army post); Lehman v. City of Shaker

Heights, 418 U.S. 298, 299 (1974) (advertising space on public

rapid transit vehicles); Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 40

(1966) (premises of county jail). In United States Postal

Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations, 453 U.S.

114, 128, 131 (1981), which petitioners do not cite, the Court

held that privately owned mailboxes are not "public forums" and

sustained a federal law prohibiting anyone from placing unstamped

mailable matter in them. In finding no "public forum," it is

uncertain whether the Court meant that mailboxes are simply

private property, as Justice Stevens thought in dissent, 453 U.S.

at 152, or, however described, are not open to the public for the

expression of ideas.

A list of Supreme Court opinions using the phrase "public

forum" through the October 1983 Term is contained in Daniel A.

Farber & John E. Nowak, The Misleading Nature of Public Form

Analysis: Content and Context in First Amendment Adjudication,

70 VA. L. REV. 1219, 1221 n.15 (1984). 

them. As petitioners and everyone else knows, these channels are

not government owned. The channels belong to private cable

operators; are managed by them as part of their systems; and are

among the products for which operators collect a fee from their

subscribers.

Petitioners nevertheless insist that even private property may

sometimes be considered a "public forum" for First Amendment

analysis. For this proposition they rest upon the italicized

portion of the following statement in Cornelius v. NAACP Legal

Defense & Educ. Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 801 (1985): "[a]lthough

petitioner is correct that as an initial matter a speaker must seek

access to public property or to private property dedicated to

public use to evoke First Amendment concerns, forum analysis is not

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18Hudgens and Lloyd distinguished the company town case of

Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), on the grounds that the

private owner of the town assumed "all of the attributes of a

state-created municipality," exercised "semi-official municipal

functions as a delegate of the State," and performed "the full

spectrum of municipal powers," Hudgens, 424 U.S. at 519 (quoting

Lloyd, 407 U.S. at 569). None of the parties to this case even

cite Marsh. The decision has no bearing on the issue before us

for quite obvious reasons. Cable operators do not exercise

municipal functions, let alone the "full spectrum" of municipal

powers. 

completed merely by identifying the government property at issue."

The forum in Cornelius was the Combined Federal Campaign, created

and regulated by the government, and consisting of "an annual

charitable fundraising drive conducted in the federal workplace

during working hours largely through the voluntary efforts of

federal employees." 473 U.S. at 790, 801. The forum was not, in

other words, what the Court described as "private property

dedicated to public use." While the Court cited no examples of

such private property, it may have been referring to the government

function cases of Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507, 519 (1976),

overruling Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza,

391 U.S. 308 (1968); and Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 568-

69 (1972), in which a similar formulationthe "doctrine of

dedication of private property to public use"made its Supreme

Court debut. What makes the Cornelius dictum puzzling is that

neither Hudgens nor Lloyd embraced any such doctrine. Far from it.

In holding that private shopping centers may not be equated with

public streets and parks for First Amendment purposes, Hudgens and

Lloyd found the dedication-of-private-property-to-public-use notion

"attenuated," "by no means" constitutionally required, and

untenable.18 Hudgens, 424 U.S. at 519; Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407

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U.S. at 569; cf. Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74,

80-81 (1980).

Given the holdings of Hudgens and Lloyd, the dictum in

Cornelius cannot serve as a basis for resurrecting this rejected

doctrine. And it cannot support a determination that cable access

channels are so dedicated to the public that the First Amendment

confers a right on the users to be free from any control by the

owner of the cable system. In saying this, we recognize that

unlike our examples of supermarket bulletin boards and private

computer networks, the governmentin the 1984 Actcompelled cable

operators to provide leased access and, if the franchising

authorities so demand, PEG access channels. This had the effect,

as the Commission found in its First Report and Order in this case,

8 F.C.C.R. at 1001-02 ¶ 22, and as the Supreme Court had

anticipated in Midwest Video, 440 U.S. at 701, of imposing

"common-carrier obligations on cable operators." In the

communications context, however, the fact that a regulated entity

is a common carrierthat under certain circumstances it must

provide communications facilities to those who desire access for

their own purposes (440 U.S. at 701)does not render the entity's

facilities "public forums" in the First Amendment sense and does

not transform the entity's discretionary carriage decisions into

decisions of the government. See Information Providers Coalition

v. FCC, 928 F.2d at 877; Carlin Communications, 827 F.2d at 1297;

see also Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S.

at 133 (Scalia, J., concurring). A heavily regulated private

carrier of electricity may cut off service without having its

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decision scrutinized as if it were a state decision, Jackson v.

Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. at 358-59, and a private cable

operator may refuse to carry indecent programming without having

its decision tested by First Amendment principles applicable to the

government alone.

* * *

Because we find no state action here and because that

essential element cannot be supplied by treating access channels as

public forums, we do not reach petitioners' First Amendment attack

on sections 10(a) and 10(c).

III

We turn now to section 10(b) of the 1992 Act. The provision

applies to cable operators who decide to carry indecent programming

on leased access channels. As implemented by the Commission's

regulations, section 10(b) directs these operators to segregate

leased access programming "identified by program providers as

indecent" on a particular leased channel (or channels, if more than

one is needed) "available to subscribers only with their prior

written consent...." Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable

Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 7990,

7993 (1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(b)). Upon

receipt of a subscriber's "written request for access to the

programming that includes a statement that the requesting

subscriber is at least eighteen years old," the operator must make

the programming available within thirty days. Id. Petitioners

detect four constitutional infirmities in this scheme: (1) section

10(b) is not the least restrictive means of achieving the

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government's interest; (2) it impermissibly discriminates against

indecent programming on leased access channels; (3) it constitutes

an invalid prior restraint; and (4) it is unconstitutionally

vague.

"All questions of government are ultimately questions of ends

and means." National Fed'n of Fed. Employees v. Greenberg, 983

F.2d 286, 290 (D.C. Cir. 1993). So here. The end of section 10(b)

is not in doubtit is to "limit the access of children to indecent

programming." Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 10(b), 106 Stat. 1460, 1486

(1992) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 532(j)(1)). That the

government has a "compelling interest in protecting the physical

and psychological well-being of minors," which "extends to

shielding minors from the influence of literature that is not

obscene by adult standards," is beyond dispute. Sable, 492 U.S. at

126. Since the First Amendment permits the government to achieve

that aim so long as it uses the least restrictive means, id. at

126, the first question section 10(b) raises is whether its

segregation and blocking requirements are such means.

In deciding this issue, it is essential to begin by comparing

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), with Sable. In

Pacifica, the Commission ruled that an afternoon radio broadcast

containing offensive, sexually explicit language violated a federal

prohibition against indecent radio communications. Pacifica, 438

U.S. at 731-33. Underscoring the nature of radio broadcastingits

"uniquely pervasive presence" making protection of unwilling

listeners by broadcasting prior warnings impossible, id. at 748,

and its accessibility to children, id. at 749-50the Court held

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19That finding necessarily entails the proposition that

there are conversations unsuitable for children to hear. 

that the Commission could prohibit a radio program containing

indecent words during times when there was a reasonable risk

children would be in the audience, id. at 732, 750. Eleven years

later, in its next encounter with federal regulation of media

indecency, the Court struck down legislation totally banning

indecent interstate commercial telephone messages. Sable, 492 U.S.

at 117. Sable distinguished Pacifica on the bases that children do

not have the same access to commercial telephone communications as

they do to radio broadcasting, and that indecent telephone

communications do not present the problem of surprising unwilling

listeners. Id. at 127-28. The Sable Court found that the total

ban on indecent commercial telephone communications limited "the

content of adult telephone conversations to that which is suitable

for children to hear." Id. at 131.19 Given these considerations,

the Court ruled there were less restrictive ways, short of a total

ban, to accomplish the government's goal of protecting children

from indecency. Id.

From Pacifica and Sable, we distill two principles applicable

to this case. First, the constitutionality of indecency regulation

in a given medium turns, in part, on the medium's characteristics.

Second, in fashioning such regulation, the government must strive

to accommodate at least two competing interests: the interest in

limiting children's exposure to indecency and the interest of

adults in having access to such material. As to the first, it is

apparent that leased access programming has far more in common with

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the radio broadcast in Pacifica than with the telephone

communication in Sable. Nearly fifty-six million households, more

than sixty percent of all households with televisions, subscribe to

cable service. H.R. CONF. REP. NO. 862, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. 56

(1992). Most cable subscribers do not or cannot use antennas to

receive broadcast television services. Id. at 57. Hence "[c]able

television has become our Nation's dominant video distribution

medium." S. REP. NO. 92, 102d Cong., 1st Sess. 3 (1991). The cable

audience, like the radio broadcast audience, "constantly tun[es] in

and out," so that prior warnings will not "completely protect the

... viewer from unexpected program content." Id. Unlike services

that subscribers affirmatively choose and pay for, such as

dial-a-porn or cable pay-per-view and premium channels, leased

access channels automatically come into all cable subscribers'

homes. Indecent leased access programming thus hardly qualifies as

an "invited guest," see Judge Wald, dissenting, at 21. A cable

subscriber no more asks for such programming than did the offended

listener in Pacifica who turned on his radio. Cable television now

provides a vast amount of information in an easily accessible way.

In this respect, it is similar to broadcasting. Consequently, it

makes no sense to say that the First Amendment requires a household

either to forego cable television altogether or risk exposure to

indecency. For purposes of regulating indecency on those channels,

we conclude that cable television is sufficiently pervasive and

easily accessible to children to justify the government's attempts

to regulate indecency on cable channels.

In light of the nature of leased access programming, does

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section 10(b) represent the least restrictive means of furthering

the government's goal of protecting children from indecent

programming? Petitioners say no, Congress could have accomplished

what segregation and blocking achieve either by continuing to rely

entirely on the 1984 Act's provision giving cable viewers the

option of voluntarily blocking indecent programming, 47 U.S.C. §

544(d)(2)(A), or by confining indecent programming to late at

nighta "safe harbor." We agree with the government that, given

the pervasiveness of cable television and its accessibility to

children, neither of these options would have achieved the

government's aims. As to subscriber-initiated blocking, the

Commission concluded that the type of programming with which

section 10(b) is concerned presents special problems such a system

does not solve. Leased access programming "may come from a wide

variety of independent sources, with no single editor controlling

[its] selection and presentation," placing a cable viewer in risk

of being intermittently and randomly confronted with patently

offensive displays of sexual or excretory activities or organs.

First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. 998, 1000 ¶ 15 (1993). To

prevent exposing children to such programming under a voluntary

blocking system, cable viewers would have two, equally unacceptable

options. Either they could continually activate and deactivate

their lockboxes, inevitably risking a slip up or a lapse that would

expose their children to indecency, or they could install lockboxes

permanently, thereby giving up leased access programming

altogether. Id. at 1000-01 ¶ 15; cf. Dial Info. Servs., 938 F.2d

at 1542 ("voluntary blocking would not even come close to

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eliminating as much of the access of children to dial-a-porn as ...

would [a] presubscription requirement"). Nor would a "safe harbor"

period protect children from indecent programming as effectively as

section 10(b)'s segregation and blocking requirements. Even during

late hours, some unsupervised children will be watching cable

television and thereby have access to indecent programming, a risk

that section 10(b) eliminates. Not only do section 10(b)'s

segregation and blocking requirements most effectively further the

compelling interest in protecting children from indecent leased

access programming, but also this provision minimally burdens those

adults who wish to watch such material. In this respect, section

10(b) differs markedly from the regulations considered in Pacifica

and Sable. In Pacifica, an adult could not tune into indecent

broadcasting at times when "there [was] a reasonable risk that

children [might] be in the audience," 438 U.S. at 732; and in

Sable, an adult could never dial into indecent commercial telephone

messages, 492 U.S. at 131. By contrast, section 10(b) provides

that those adults desiring to watch indecent programs on the

channel the operator has set aside can do so no later than thirty

days from the date of their request. Implementation of Section 10

of the Cable Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58

Fed. Reg. 7990, 7993 (1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. §

76.701(c)). In fact, segregation and blocking appear to

accommodate the interests of those viewers who want indecent

programming better than would a safe harbor system, under which

cable viewers would be confined to watching such programming during

designated, often inconvenient time periods.

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Given its effectiveness in limiting the exposure of children

to indecent programming and its insignificant restriction of

adults' access to such material, we conclude that section 10(b)

passes the least restrictive means test.

Petitioners' second argument is that the

segregation-and-blocking system unconstitutionally discriminates

against programming on leased access channels. Section 10(b),

according to petitioners, embodies "speaker-based discrimination"

in violation of the First Amendment and the equal protection

component of the Fifth Amendment because similar regulations do not

apply to other types of channels. We find this idea tenuous.

Section 10(b) no more singles out indecent leased access

programming for regulation than did the 1984 Act, which petitioners

tout as the epitome of constitutionality. See infra p. 14. They

ignore entirely that a blocking system has been in place for all

channels, and thus with respect to all "speakers" on cable

television, since 1984. As we have mentioned, the 1984 Act, in

"order to restrict the viewing of programming which is obscene or

indecent," required cable operators to sell or lease requesting

subscribers "a device by which the subscriber can prohibit viewing

of a particular cable service during periods selected by that

subscriber." 47 U.S.C. § 544(d)(2)(A). These devices, commonly

known as lockboxes or "parental control devices," use a key or a

numeric code to lock out certain channels. DANIEL L. BRENNER, ET AL.,

CABLE TELEVISION AND OTHER NONBROADCAST VIDEO § 6.09[3][c], at 6-98 (1994).

Employing the devices, subscribers can "decide whether to block a

channel and have the operator keep that channel out of their home

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20Section 10(b)'s regulatory scheme parallels the one

Congress imposed on the dial-a-porn industry. Under 47 U.S.C. §

223(c)(1), telephone subscribers can obtain access to obscene or

indecent telephone messages only by making a written request to

their telephone carriers. The Second and Ninth Circuits have

rejected constitutional challenges to this statute. Dial Info.

Servs. Corp. v. Thornburgh, 938 F.2d 1535 (2d Cir. 1991), cert.

denied, 112 S. Ct. 966 (1992); Information Providers' Coalition

v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866 (9th Cir. 1991); see supra note 16. 

by the flick of a switch." Id. Section 10(b) of the 1992 Act

altered this system so that blocking on leased access channels

carrying indecent programming is now operator-initiated, with

subscribers retaining the option of having the channel unblocked.20

From the perspective of those petitioners who show or wish to

show indecent programs on these channels, the difference between

the two systems amounts to this: under the 1984 Act, their

material got into the home unless the subscriber locked it out;

under the 1992 Act, their material does not get into the home

unless the subscriber invites it in. Either way the programmers'

products are available to those who want to watch them. Of course,

there will always be subscribers disinclined to any action

regardless of what system is in place. Before 1984, their

television sets would receive the indecent programs shown on these

channels; after 1992, they would not. But we see no reason why

leased access programmers should necessarily retain the advantage

of such inertia, and we can conceive of no constitutional principle

entitling them to do so. Furthermore, there is little difference

between section 10's treatment of indecent leased access

programming and the 1992 Act's handling of pay-per-view

programming. Under current regulations, pay-per-view programs are,

in effect, blocked and segregated: as the "negative option

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21If the operator decides to offer a "premium channel" free

of chargethat is a "pay service offered on a per channel or per

program basis, which offers movies rated by the Motion Picture

Association of America as X, NC-17, or R" the operator must give

at least 30 days notice of the offering and block the channel at

the subscriber's request. 47 U.S.C. § 544(d)(3). 

22Viewers preferring "unimpeded, selective access to some

but not all" indecent programming, see Judge Wald, dissenting, at

14, still have the option of requesting access to a blocked

channel and installing a lockbox that enables them to block

indecent programming they do not want their children to see. 

Judge Wald apparently agrees that lockboxes are effective means

of restricting access to indecent programming. See id. at 23-25. 

billing" provision requires, a subscriber will not receive such

programs unless he or she specifically so requests. 47 U.S.C. §

543(f) ("A cable operator shall not charge a subscriber for any

service or equipment that the subscriber has not affirmatively

requested by name.").21 If that is constitutional, and it surely

is, so is section 10(b).

We reach the same conclusion when we consider the matter from

the perspective of those petitioners who are cable subscribers.

For the purpose of this analysis, subscribers may be divided into

two classesthose who do, and those who do not, want to receive

indecent programming on leased access channels. Before the 1992

Act, viewers in the do-not-want category always had to take the

initiative and to bear the expense of blocking indecent programming

from their homes. It was up to them to request their cable

operators to provide lockboxes to them, and they paid for the

equipment. With the 1992 Act, it is the do-want class who must

take the initiative: they are now the ones who have to make a

request, in writing, for access to indecent programming.22 Under

both systems, adults who wish to receive this type of material

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23Petitioners do not contend that any stigma attaches to a

subscriber requesting unblocking or that subscribers would

otherwise be deterred from making a request. Playboy's

pay-per-view channel, to which subscribers must also request

access, apparently has a large audience. See Comments of New

York Citizens Committee for Responsible Media, at 11 (Dec. 29,

1992). Moreover, the 1984 Act and the 1992 Act contain

provisions protecting the privacy of subscribers in their

dealings with cable operators. Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 20, 106

Stat. 1460, 1497-98 (1992) (codified at 47 U.S.C. §§ 551(a)(2),

551(c)(2)); Pub. L. No. 98-549, § 631, 98 Stat. 2779, 2794-95

(1984) (codified at 47 U.S.C. § 551). Although the parties do

not mention the case, it is worth noting that for these reasons

Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965), is

distinguishable. The Supreme Court there struck down a statute

directing the Post Office to detain mail containing "communist

political propaganda" and to deliver it only upon the addressee's

affirmative request. Id. at 302, 307. The law set federal

officials "astride the flow of mail to inspect it, appraise it,

write the addressee about it, and await a response before

dispatching the mail," id. at 306, and the Court rested its

decision on the "narrow ground" that this would deter persons

from requesting such mail because they "might think they would

invite disaster if they read what the Federal Government says

contains the seeds of treason," id. at 307. It is not the

federal government, but private cable operators, who receive the

unblocking requests, and federal law forbids the operators from

receive it. Certainly, as to the 1984 Act's lockbox system, there

can be no constitutional objection. If individuals do not want

indecent material coming into their homes, they have every right to

keep it out. Nothing in the Constitution gives cable operators and

programmers the right to demand that subscribers watch whatever

they produce. The corollary to the freedom to bring expressive

material into the home is the freedom not to bring it in. By

requiring lockboxes to be made available upon request, the 1984

Congress facilitated the freedom of viewers and thereby advanced

First Amendment values. It cannot make a constitutional difference

that the 1992 Congress, through section 10(b), has also facilitated

viewer preferences by shifting the burden of making a request from

the do-not-want class to the do-want class of subscribers.23

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revealing what choice any particular subscriber has made. 

To say, as petitioners do, that section 10(b) distinguishes

between indecent speech and other types of speech, or that it

singles out leased access channels from other cable channels,

supplies only a description, not an analysis. Of course section

10(b) does what petitioners say, but it does so for a particular,

and for a constitutionally permissible reasonto protect children

and to enhance the ability of parents to shield their children from

the influence of "adult" programming. See Ginsberg v. New York,

390 U.S. 629, 639-40 (1968). The notion that Congress could not

take one step in this direction without imposing section 10(b)-like

requirements on all cable channels is not only untenable (see

United States v. Edge Broadcasting Co., 113 S. Ct. 2696, 2707

(1993)), but also inconsistent with the least restrictive means

test we have just discussed. That constitutional principle

confines the scope of the solution to the extent of the problem.

See Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. New York Crime Victims Bd., 112 S.

Ct. 501, 511-12 (1991). To repeat what we wrote earlier, leased

access programming comes from a wide variety of sources; no single

entity controls its selection and presentation; no single editor

is responsible for what is shown. What will appear on these

channels, and when, is anyone's guess. Without segregation and

blocking, cable viewers risk subjecting themselves and their

children to sporadic encounters with patently offensive displays of

sexual or excretory activities or organs. First Report and Order,

8 F.C.C.R. 998, 1000 ¶ 15 (1993). Only PEG access channels are

comparable. But they did not pose dangers on the order of

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24Operators have the power to impose a segregation and

blocking system on the vast majority of their non-access

channels, because their editorial control over such channels is

unfettered by federal regulation. The only exception is for

those channels they must set aside for local broadcasting to

fulfill their "must-carry obligations." See generally 47 U.S.C.

§§ 534, 535; Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct.

2445 (1994). Broadcasting, however, is regulated under a

separate statutory scheme limiting indecent programming to the

late evening hours. See generally Action for Children's

Television v. FCC, 11 F.3d 170 (D.C. Cir. 1993), reh'g in banc

granted, 15 F.3d 186 (D.C. Cir. 1994). As to PEG access

channels, section 10(c) of the 1992 Act gives cable operators

"broad discretion" to decide how to treat indecent programming

carried there, and may if they choose impose a blocking system. 

Second Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. 2638, 2641 ¶ 19. According

to the Commission, Brief for the Commission at 45, operators are

not prohibited from imposing a segregation and blocking system

for PEG channels. See First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1005

¶ 43 n.39. Thus, under section 10(b) operators are required to

segregate and block indecent programming carried on leased access

channels, while they are generally permitted to do so on other

channels. 

magnitude of those identified on leased access channels, and

Congress knew that if this situation changed, local franchising

authorities could respond by issuing "rules and procedures" or

other "requirements" pursuant to the 1984 Act, 47 U.S.C. § 531(a)

& (b), or by eliminating PEG access channels altogether, 47 U.S.C.

§ 531(a). If Congress nevertheless had stretched section 10(b) to

cover other cable channels, if it had not concentrated only on

leased access channels, it could have been charged with having

regulated more extensively than necessary. While there undoubtedly

is indecent programming on other cable channels,24 the Commission

found that cable operators generally provide it through

"per-program or per channel services that subscribers must

specifically request in advance, in the same manner as under the

blocking approach mandated by section 10(b)." First Report and

Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1001 ¶ 19 n.20. Indeed, petitioners' examples

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25Petitioners also contend that § 10 as a whole constitutes

a prior restraint because cable operators are "pressured to

censor" indecent programming according to a regulatory scheme

that "dictates the contours of this censorship." Although framed

in different terms, this argument is essentially identical to

petitioners' claim regarding state action, which we discussed and

rejected. See supra pp. 10-27. We reiterate that cable

operators who decide to prohibit indecent programming on access

channels are not state actors. Consequently, their banning of

such material cannot constitute a prior restraint. Cf. Dial

Info. Servs., 938 F.2d at 1543; Information Providers'

Coalition, 928 F.2d at 877. 

of indecency on other nonleased access channelsthe Playboy Channel

and "Real Sex" on HBOfall into this category. In short, there is

no constitutional rule forbidding Congress from addressing only the

most severe aspects of this problem, and there are constitutional

doctrines, such as narrow tailoring and least restrictive means,

that may have constrained it from going further than necessary.

Petitioners' two remaining contentions regarding section 10(b)

merit only brief discussion. That the Commission's regulations

give a cable operator up to thirty days to comply with a

subscriber's request to unblock a leased access channel does not

entail a "prior restraint" in violation of the First Amendment.25

Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable Consumer Protection and

Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 7990, 7993 (1993) (to be

codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(c)). A prior restraint is an

administrative or judicial order restraining future speech. See,

e.g., Alexander v. United States, 113 S. Ct. 2766, 2771 (1993);

American Library Ass'n v. Barr, 956 F.2d 1178, 1190 (D.C. Cir.

1992). Yet nothing in section 10(b) forbids speakers from

speaking. Compare Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., 445 U.S. 308,

311 (1980); Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546,

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26The FCC determined that a written request, rather than a

telephonic one, was necessary to enable a cable operator to

ascertain that the requestor is over eighteen years old. First

Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009 ¶ 67. 

554 (1975). The offerings of leased access programmers will air.

Subscribers wishing to see indecent speech may not have their

wishes fulfilled instantaneously,26 just as new subscribers to cable

television may have to wait for their services to be hooked up.

The latter is not a prior restraint, and neither is the former.

See Dial Info. Servs. Corp., 938 F.2d at 1543; Information

Providers' Coalition, 928 F.2d at 878. The government is neither

prohibiting indecent programming in advance, nor requiring anyone

to obtain the government's stamp of approval before a program airs.

Petitioners' remaining argument is that section 10(b) is

impermissibly vague because leased access programmers must identify

for cable operators which of their programs are indecent.

Programmers thus must "worry about what a cable operator may

"reasonably believe' to be indecent." Brief for Petitioners at 46.

The Commission's definition of indecent programming essentially

tracks the definition of broadcast indecency this court reviewed in

Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 932 F.2d 1504, 1507-08

(D.C. Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 1282 (1992) (ACT II ).

Compare Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable Consumer

Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 7990, 7993

(1993) (to be codified at 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(g)). In ACT II, 932

F.2d at 1507-08, and in Action for Children's Television v. FCC,

852 F.2d 1332, 1338-39 (D.C. Cir 1988) (ACT I ), we held that the

Supreme Court's Pacifica decision foreclosed the question whether

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this definition of indecency was unconstitutionally vague: "if

acceptance of the FCC's generic definition of "indecent' as capable

of surviving a vagueness challenge is not implicit in Pacifica, we

have misunderstood Higher Authority and welcome correction." ACT

I, 852 F.2d at 1339. No intervening Supreme Court decision affects

our determination. There is nothing to petitioners' lament that

access programmers will have trouble discerning what cable

operators consider indecent. Since the Commission will resolve any

conflicts between a programmer and an operator on this issue, First

Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1010 ¶ 75, programmers must

ultimately concern themselves with potential Commission

determinations regarding indecency. In this respect, they are in

precisely the same situation as the petitioners in ACT I and ACT

II.

* * *

Section 10(b)'s segregation and blocking requirements satisfy

the least restrictive means test; do not impermissibly single out

leased access programming for regulation; do not constitute a

prior restraint on speech; and are not, because of the definition

of indecency, unconstitutionally vague.

The petitions for review are denied.

WALD, Circuit Judge, with whom TATEL, Circuit Judge, and, with

respect to Parts II and III, ROGERS, Circuit Judge, join,

dissenting: Lurid descriptions of programming that may well cross

over the line into obscenity and merit no First Amendment

protection at all should not obscure what this case really is

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1The regulations define "indecent" programming as

programming "that describes or depicts sexual or excretory

activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured

by contemporary community standards for the cable medium." 

Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable Consumer Protection and

Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 7990, 7993 (1993). The

definition thus extends to any programming that includes

"patently offensive" verbal descriptions or visual depictions of

sexual or excretory activities, regardless of the literary,

artistic, political, or scientific merit of the work as a whole. 

The regulations require leased access programmers to self-certify

whether their work is "indecent" under this definition, at the

risk of being barred from televising future work if they err in

that judgment. First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. 998, 1005 ¶

43, 1007 ¶ 51, 1010 ¶ 75 (1993). That the regulations will

likely result in overdeterrence by risk-averse programmers

seeking to avoid the professional "death penalty" imposed for

certification errors seems quite apparent. The result will

inevitably be an extremely broad class of programming silenced by

the regulations. 

about. See Majority opinion ("Maj. op.") at 19-20. This case is

not about obscenity; it concerns significant restrictions on a

class of speech that is unquestionably entitled to constitutional

protection, although possibly offensive to some audiences. See

Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126

(1989). Under the broad definition of "indecency" used in this

regulation, affected speech could include programs on the AIDS

epidemic, abortion, childbirth, or practically any aspect of human

sexuality.1

The Denver Area Educational Television Consortium's

critically-acclaimed program The 90's Channel, transmitted on the

leased access channels of eight cable systems, serving 500,000

customers, provides information and opinion on a broad range of

subjects in a self-described "unvarnished" cinema-verite style.

The 90's Channel has on occasion included segments on how to do a

self-help gynecological exam, a documentary on the controversial

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Robert Mapplethorpe art exhibit, and a traditional fertility

festival in Japan featuring a procession of marchers carrying

images of human genitalia. Each of these programs included

descriptions or depictions of sexual activities or organs that

might well be considered "patently offensive" as measured by

contemporary community standards. Self-applying the FCC's

definition of "indecency," then, it is not at all improbable that

a cable operator might declare all these programs "indecent," and

find itself required under the regulations either to ban or to

block them.

"Indecency" is not confined merely to material that borders on

obscenity"obscenity lite." Unlike obscenity, indecent material

includes literarily, artistically, scientifically, and politically

meritorious material. Indeed, by definition, it includes all

"patently offensive" material that has any of these kinds of merit,

and cannot be branded as obscene under the standard established by

the Supreme Court in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973).

In many instances, the programming's very merit will be inseparable

from its seminal "offensiveness." A bowdlerized documentary on the

Mapplethorpe exhibit which did not include some description or

depiction of Mapplethorpe's sexually explicit photographs

themselves, for example, would hardly be an informative statement

on the artistic and political debate the exhibit engendered. Yet

the very act of including such powerful visual or audio images,

which to many viewers are "patently offensive," would court an

"indecency" citation by the FCC if the cable operator did not pull

the plug or consign the program to a blocked channel. It is these

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2We note that the Supreme Court has never actually passed on

the FCC's broad definition of "indecency." See Action for

Children's Television v. FCC, 852 F.2d 1332, 1338-39 (D.C. Cir.

1988) (acknowledging that in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S.

726 (1978), the Supreme Court never specifically addressed

whether the FCC's generic definition of indecency was

unconstitutionally vague, but arguing that because the Court

"implicitly" approved the definition by relying on it, lower

courts are barred from addressing the vagueness issue on the

merits). 

kinds of portentous decisions about art, politics, science and

"indecency" which are implicated in this case.

While we accept that the government may have a compelling

interest in protecting children from indecent programming, we agree

with Judge Edwards that that interest must be pursued in the

context of helping parents to make viewing choices for their

children as to the programming they watch inside the home.2

Additionally we note that producers of such programming also have

a constitutional right against unnecessary governmentally-induced

restrictions on their right to disseminate programs to willing

adults. The legal issue devolves into one of whether the FCC's

"indecency" regulations unduly burden the First Amendment rights of

speakers and adult listeners on access channels of privately-owned

cable systems. Before turning to this complicated question,

however, we must satisfy ourselves that state action is present in

Congress' statutory scheme.

I. STATE ACTION IS INVOLVED IN SECTIONS 10(A) AND (B)

The First Amendment commands that "Congress shall make no law

... abridging the freedom of speech...." Our state action analysis

begins with the law that Congress has made in this case. Sections

10(a) and (b) of the 1992 Cable Act impose a disjunctive scheme

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regulating indecent speech. In tandem, they require that cable

operators either ban or block "indecent" speech on leased access

cable channels. The majority insists, however, that § 10(a) is

exempt from constitutional scrutiny because it involves no

state-imposed burden on speech. Instead, they say, § 10(a) merely

restores to cable operators the "editorial control" taken away from

them in the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, Pub. L. No.

98-549, 98 Stat. 2779 ("1984 Act"), which mandated the creation of

publicly accessible leased channels and forbade operators from

controlling the content of programs on those channels. Maj. op. at

15. In fact, § 10(a) does not restore any genuine editorial

control to cable operators over indecent material. Instead § 10

insists that a cable operator either ban a governmentally-defined

category of "indecent" speech outright or, if it declines, relegate

it to a separate channel and block all households from receiving

that channel unless they specifically request it in writing up to

30 days in advance. Sections 10(a) and (b) are co-dependent parts

of one statutory scheme regulating speech. They present cable

operators with an "either-or" command: accentuate the positive by

banning indecent leased access programming under § 10(a), or

eliminate the negative by blocking it under § 10(b). There is no

"Mr. In-between." The operator can no longer in close cases let

the program air on a regular leased access channel, or televise it

at a later hour when fewer children are watching, as he might on a

regular commercial channel. Clearly, §§ 10(a) and (b) are

inseparable parts of an integrated statutory regime that aims out

front to curtail cable transmission of indecent speech, and affords

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cable operators only the most limited choice as to how to achieve

that end.

The purpose and effect of §§ 10(a) and (b) are clear enough.

As their chief congressional sponsor explained, they "forbid cable

companies from inflicting their unsuspecting subscribers with

sexually explicit programs on leased access channels." 138 CONG.

REC. S646 (daily ed., Jan. 30, 1992) (statement of Sen. Helms)

(emphasis added). That forthright statement would ordinarily end

the state action inquiry. When Congress passes a statute whose

avowed purpose, and effect, is to forbid or severely restrict

communication of a certain category of speech defined by content,

state action is usually conceded. Cf., e.g., Regan v. Taxation

With Representation of Washington, 461 U.S. 540, 548 (1983)

(congressional enactment may have differential effect on some

categories of speech, so long as the statute is not "intended to

suppress" a content-defined category of speech).

The majority argues, however, that because § 10(a) is couched

in permissive language, not explicitly requiring the operator to

ban indecent speech, there is no state action. Maj. op. at 12.

But in effect, § 10 says "an operator may ban, or in the

alternative must block." To illustrate the effect of the "may"

language of § 10(a) when used in the context of § 10(b), we point

out that the operator's optionsand the burden on speechwould be

no different if the regulation were expressed in any of the

following terms:

1. "an operator must ban, or in the alternative must block";

2. "an operator may block, or in the alternative must ban";

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3Although the majority does not say so expressly, its

analysis of § 10(b) as the "least restrictive means" for

protecting children presumes that state action is implicated. 

Yet, if § 10(a) does not implicate state action, it is difficult

to see why § 10(b) does either, since the cable operator is no

more required to segregate-and-block indecent programming under §

10(b) than it is to ban indecent programming under § 10(a). In

either case, the operator can avoid one provision entirely by

"voluntarily" electing to submit to the other provision. 

or

3. "an operator may ban, or in the alternative may block, but

these alternatives are to the exclusion of all others."

All these formulations, linguistically distinct, are logically

and functionally equivalent. Each commands that the cable operator

either ban or block indecent speech. Yet the §§ 10(a) and (b)

option is no different in its effect. Only empty formalism would

elevate Congress' choice of the nominally permissive "may" language

of § 10(a) to demonstrate the absence of state action, when § 10(b)

lurks in the shadows, ready to pounce.3

Senator Helms's statements in floor debate that § 10 merely

restores editorial control to cable operators do not do much to

bolster the government's anti-state action argument. See 138 CONG.

REC. S646 (daily ed., Jan. 30, 1992) (statement of Sen. Helms)

("this is not governmental action" but "action taken by a private

party"); id. at S649 (statement of Sen. Helms) (in colloquy,

responding affirmatively to the statement, "So this is not

Government censorship"). In light of Sen. Helms's earlier

statement that the purpose of § 10 was to "forbid" cable operators

from transmitting indecent programming, these later statements

suggest only a belated awareness of the section's constitutional

infirmities, and an attempt to put a gloss on the directive. But

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an unconstitutional sow's ear cannot be so easily converted into a

constitutional silk purse.

The majority concedes that if the cable operator's decision to

ban indecent programming under § 10(a) is state action, the

regulation is a form of state censorship and cannot survive First

Amendment scrutiny. Maj. op. at 11. But they go on to cite Blum

v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991 (1982), for the proposition that the

cable operator's decision to ban indecent programming under §

10(a), however constrained, is not state action, but rather the

action of a private party without a sufficiently close "nexus" to

the government so that the state may be held responsible for his

actions. Under Blum, the state can be held responsible for a

private decision only if the state exercises coercive power on the

private actor, provides "significant encouragement" for the

decision, or transfers into private hands powers traditionally

exercised by the state. Id. at 1004-05. Here, the majority

contends, none of those criteria is met.

I do not think this case fits the Blum model. As Blum itself

instructs, "[f]aithful adherence to the "state action' requirement

... requires careful attention to the gravamen of the plaintiff's

complaint." Id. at 1003. In Blum, nursing home patients

challenged decisions by private physicians and nursing home

administratorsbased on "medical judgments ... according to

professional standards that are not established by the State," id.

at 1008to discharge or transfer them without procedural

safeguards. The Blum complainants sought to hold those private

decisionmakers to due process standards applicable to state actors;

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4The confusion may stem from the way the argument was posed

and addressed in the original panel opinion. There, the

government conceded that if cable operators' decisions to ban

indecent programming under §§ 10(a) and 10(c) were state action,

the statute would impose a constitutionally impermissible

censorship regime. Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 10 F.3d

812, 820 n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1993), vacated, 15 F.3d 186 (1994). The

panel held that cable operators' decisions were indeed state

action. Id. at 818-22. The majority rejects that conclusion. 

But the majority's next move is a nonsequitur: it simply does

not follow that, if the cable operators' decisions are not state

action, then the statute itself is not state action, and is

exempt from constitutional scrutiny. Indeed, it strikes me as a

wholly untenable proposition that a statute duly enacted by the

Congress of the United States could be anything other than state

action.

The majority might better have argued that although the

statute itself is plainly state action, it effects no abridgement

of freedom of speech because it does nothing more than restore

editorial control to cable operators. In that regard, they might

have a stronger argument if the statute withdrew governmental

restrictions on cable operators' control over leased and PEG

access channels evenhandedly and across the board, without itself

imposing differential regulations discriminating (as this statute

they did "not challeng[e] particular state regulations or

procedures ...." on due process grounds. Id. at 1003. Here, in

contrast, petitioners do not seek to apply First Amendment

standards to the "actions taken by cable operators with respect to

indecent programming," Maj. op. at 11. Instead, they mount a

direct facial challenge to a federal statute and implementing

regulations which have the avowed purpose and effect of restricting

communication of a content-defined class of

constitutionally-protected speech. The majority's Blum analysis

thus asks, and answers, the wrong question. The core question here

is not whether the cable operators' private decisions implicate

state action; whatever the answer to that question, we have state

action in the government's own ban-or-block scheme, which is what

is at issue here.4

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does) on the basis of content in order to suppress a particular

content-defined category of speech. See infra, Part IV.A. But

instead of pursuing that line of reasoning, the majority would

immunize the statute itself from constitutional scrutiny on

grounds that cable operators' decisions under §§ 10(a) and 10(c)

are not state action. 

5As Justice White explained in his concurrence in Blum, the

private parties' decisions there were not based on any rule

imposed by the state. 457 U.S. at 843 (White, J., concurring). 

As the Supreme Court explained in Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co.,

Inc.decided the same day as Blumthe point of the state action

inquiry is to determine whether "the conduct allegedly causing the

deprivation of a federal right ... [is] fairly attributable to the

state." 457 U.S. 922, 937 (1982). To answer that question, we ask

first whether the deprivation is "caused by the exercise of some

right or privilege created by the State or by a rule of conduct

imposed by the State or by a person for whom the State is

responsible"; and second, whether the "party charged with the

deprivation ... [is] a person who may fairly be said to be a state

actor." Id. Here, the deprivation of First Amendment rights is

"caused by ... a rule of conduct imposed by the State"the rule

requiring cable operators to ban or block a category of

programming.

5 And the parties "charged with the deprivation,"

Congress and the FCC, are clearly "state actors."

Even if Blum did provide a legal analogy, which it does not,

the factual record places it a galaxy apart. There is pressure in

this scheme to push cable operators to ban indecent programming

outright. Statements in the agency record by cable operators say

that they view the § 10(b) segregation-and-blocking arrangement to

be so technically and administratively cumbersome as to render it

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6The Commission noted that "the new blocking requirements

may be difficult for some cable systems that are not as

technologically advanced as addressable systems" and "may require

considerable adjustments ... in terms of rearranging existing

services...." First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009 ¶ 69. 

See also J.A. 253 (comments of Time Warner Entertainment Company,

noting "technological problems" faced by nonaddressable systems). 

"In addition, the new regulations will require cable operators to

establish new procedures for subscriber notification ... and for

the processing of requests of leased access users and of

subscriber requests for this channel, etc." 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009 ¶

69. Finally, the Commission noted the special difficulties faced

by "systems that require trapping devices to circumscribe access

to these services." Id. Some "trapping" technology would require

the operator to send out employees to place signal-interdicting

"traps" at each subscribing household, and to remove them when

the subscriber requested the blocked service. See J.A. 244

(comments of National Cable Television Association, Inc.). Nor

are the incentives created by these complexities simply a matter

of whether the costs are recoverable. Even if cable operators

were allowed to recover their costs under the § 10(b) blocking

scheme, cancelling out its cost disadvantages, opting for the §

10(b) blocking scheme would still require the cable operator in

many cases to hire, train and supervise additional personnel,

invest in new equipment, and develop and implement additional

recordkeeping procedures. See J.A. 200. Sound management

principles suggest that if either alternative would produce the

same net revenue, the less technically and administratively

complex option would be preferred. 

highly unattractive and indeed for many "unworkable." Joint

Appendix ("J.A.") 195-97, 200, 253. See also First Report and

Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1009, ¶ 69 (acknowledging technical and

administrative burdens of blocking scheme).6

In addition, as the majority itself concedes, Maj. op. at 23-

24, the Commission has yet to decide who will absorb the

potentially high cost of the § 10(b) segregation-and-blocking

scheme. If the cost falls on cable operators, as it presumptively

must at least temporarily until the Commission authorizes a shift

to subscribers or lessees, operators have a strong financial

incentive, as well, to ban rather than block. See J.A. 200-01

(comments of Community Antenna Television Association, Inc.).

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Somewhat puzzlingly, the majority argues that because the

Commission has not yet decided whether to allow cable operators to

shift these costs, we do not know if operators will have a

financial incentive to ban rather than block, and therefore

petitioners have not met their burden of showing state action.

Maj. op. at 23-24. That seems to me a notion at odds with our

traditional constitutional test for state action. Surely the

agency's delay in stating who will ultimately bear the financial

burden of its scheme cannot postpone constitutional review

indefinitely, once the scheme is in operation. And clearly the

present regulations do not authorize operators to shift the costs

of segregation-and-blocking to subscribers or lessees. See

Implementation of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and

Competition Act of 1992: Rate Regulation, 8 F.C.C.R. 5631 WW 506,

516-20 (1993) (Commission sets maximum rates operators may charge

lessees, based on annual calculation of "implicit fee" paid by

nonaffiliated commercial programmers, with no provision for

cost-based adjustments). Until the Commission takes affirmative

measures to allow cost-shifting, any operator undertaking

segregation-and-blocking under § 10(b) bears the expense without

any promise of recoupment. He therefore has a financial incentive

to ban rather than block.

On the basis of the combined technical, administrative, and

financial burdens imposed on cable operators under § 10(b), I have

no difficulty even under a Blum-type rationale in concluding that

the § 10 regulatory scheme "significantly encourages" them to ban

indecent speech, thereby converting the cable operator's decision

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7For the reasons detailed in Part IV.B. infra, I believe §

10(a) would be constitutionally impermissible even if it stood

alonewhich, of course, it does not. Given the structure of the

statutory provisions affecting leased access programming, and

their avowed purpose to "forbid cable companies from inflicting

their unsuspecting subscribers with sexually explicit programs on

leased access channels," 138 CONG. REC. S646 (daily ed., Jan. 30,

1992) (statement of Sen. Helms), I do not think § 10(a) is

severable from § 10(b). The "relevant inquiry in evaluating

severability is whether the statute will function in a manner

consistent with the intent of Congress." Alaska Airlines, Inc.

v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 685 (1987) (emphasis in original). If we

were to strike down § 10(b) and leave § 10(a), cable operators

would be left with discretion whether to "inflict[ ] their

unsuspecting subscribers with sexually explicit programs," flatly

contradicting the stated purpose of the provisions. 

8The majority also rejects petitioners' alternative

argument, that because leased and public access channels are a

"public forum" for purposes of First Amendment analysis, the

government may not authorize private parties to censor speech

there.

It is a close question. While the legislative history of

the 1984 Cable Act uses the term "public forum" in describing

leased and public access channels, admittedly there is no clear

indication that Congress was using that term in its technical

First Amendment sense, classifying cable access channels with

such traditional public fora as parks and streets. However, I

disagree with the majority's suggestion that a public forum can

never exist on private property. See Maj. op. at 28-31. In some

circumstances private property dedicated to public uses could

become a limited public forum, through some combination of

legally binding use restrictions and an established tradition of

use for speech purposes. A land swap, zoning approval, or

building permits, for example, might be made conditional on a

private property owner's agreement to permanently set aside part

of his property for public access and use, including traditional

First Amendment speech activities, either to substitute for or to

supplement "traditional" public fora like parks and streets. 

Such use restrictions, perhaps in combination with a tradition of

actual use for such speech purposes, might create a public forum. 

Similarly, Congress might create a public forum by insisting that

privately owned communications media dedicate a portion of their

capacity to unrestricted public access for speech purposes. 

Nonetheless, I would not reach the question of whether Congress

created a public forum in this case because I find state action

present in the statutory scheme itself. 

to ban under § 10(a) into state action.7

In sum, §§ 10(a) and (b) in tandem constitute state action.8

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9Attempting to distinguish Lamont, the majority misstates

the "narrow ground" upon which the Supreme Court relied. See

Maj. op. at 38 n.23. The passage more fully reads:

We rest on the narrow ground that the addressee in

order to receive his mail must request in writing that

it be delivered. This amounts in our judgment to an

unconstitutional abridgement of the addressee's First

Amendment rights. The addressee carries an affirmative

II. SECTIONS 10(A) AND (B) CAUSE A DEPRIVATION OF

FIRST AMENDMENT SPEECH RIGHTS

The majority relies on the untenable notion that requiring

adults to separately request "indecent" leased access programming

in writing, wait up to 30 days to receive such service, and

possibly be required to pay extra for it, poses no burden

whatsoever on the speech rights of either the speakers or receivers

of such speech. See Maj. op. at 37-38. This does not square with

reality. If the government imposed similar restrictions on other

categories of speech, such as speech concerning nuclear power or

criticism of government officials, and required that citizens could

receive it only after separately requesting it in writing and then

waiting up to 30 days to receive it, we would almost surely say

that the speech rights of both speakers and listeners were unduly

burdened. In Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965),

the Supreme Court struck down a statute providing that the Post

Office deliver "communist propaganda" only upon written request in

advance from the recipient. The Court ruled "on the narrow ground

that the addressee in order to receive his mail must request in

writing that it be delivered," id. at 307, and thus the recipient

"carries an affirmative obligation which we do not think the

Government may impose on him." Id.9 Advance notice and

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obligation which we do not think the Government may

impose on him.

Lamont, 381 U.S. at 307. The Court then discussed the

requirement's "deterrent effect," noting that some vulnerable

government employees would fear for their livelihoods if they

requested forbidden literature. But "[a]part from them, any

addressee is likely to feel some inhibition in sending for

literature which federal officials have condemned as "communist

political propaganda.' " Id. (emphasis added). Lamont, then,

says such requirements burden speech in two ways: first by

placing an "affirmative obligation" on the recipient, and second

by branding the speech with government disapproval. See also id.

at 309 (Brennan, J., concurring) (rejecting government's argument

that the requirement is "only inconvenience and not an

abridgement," because "inhibition as well as prohibition against

the exercise of precious First Amendment rights is a power denied

to government"). 

registration requirements "drastically burden free speech" because

they "stifle" the spontaneity and immediacy of expressive

activities and "chill[ ] ... the exercise of first amendment

rights." Rosen v. Port of Portland, 641 F.2d 1243, 1249 (9th Cir.

1981) (striking down requirement that speakers wishing to exercise

First Amendment rights in port facilities must register in writing

at least one business day in advance). Our concern in such cases

is that, by singling out a disfavored class of speech and requiring

that audiences take special, affirmative steps to receive it, the

government effectively blocks many potential listeners from hearing

it, and impairs many speakers from providing it. These results are

"at war with the "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' debate and

discussion that are contemplated by the First Amendment." Lamont,

381 U.S. at 307 (citation omitted).

In the first place, such disparate treatment clearly implies

governmental disapproval of the speech in question, and it is

beyond cavil that some stigma attaches to a written request to

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receive it. Cf. Lamont, 381 U.S. at 307 (placing affirmative duty

on recipient of content-defined speech "is almost certain to have

a deterrent effect" because the recipient "is likely to feel some

inhibition in sending for literature which government officials

have condemned...."); Rosen, 641 F.2d at 1251 ("Identification

requirements impose heavy burdens on the exercise of first

amendment rights" because stigma and fear of reprisals will deter

many from engaging in disfavored speech activities.).

More importantly, as the majority itself implicitly

recognizes, only those who identify themselves as having a

compelling interest in receiving the segregated category of speech

are likely to take the special affirmative steps necessary to

receive it. See Maj. op. at 37-38. Others with a milder level of

interest or a lesser commitment to challenging the government's

disapproval may lack the boldness to step forward and request it,

or the initiative to take the affirmative steps necessary to gain

access to the sealed-off information. Some may never even become

aware that the speech may be received upon special request. Almost

certainly fewer people will ultimately hear such speech. And under

the new economic realities of a diminished market for their product

as a result of governmental intervention, potential producers of

such controversial speech will be disinclined to create it. Thus

can government-imposed access barriers effectively squelch

constitutionally-protected speech.

Yet the majority insists that so long as those who want access

to a content-based class of speech ultimately may receive it, the

government may, without constitutional consequence, freely place

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obstacles in the way of their receiving it. As a general

proposition, this is surely inconsistent with our constitutional

traditions of free speech and the unimpeded flow of ideas. We

would not so easily tolerate such direct governmental interference

with other categories of speech. Cf. Lamont, 381 U.S. at 307;

Rosen, 641 F.2d at 1252. One suspects that, sub silentio, the

majority is leaning on a judgment that "indecent" speech is

entitled to such a lesser degree of protection than other

constitutionally-protected categories of speech that the same

rigorous standards of constitutional testing do not apply.

Finally, the majority's arguments are fundamentally

inconsistent with the realities of television viewing. The market

for "indecent" speech does not break down neatly, as the majority

suggests, into self-identified groups of those who want indecent

speech in their homes, and those who do not. See Maj. op. at 38.

Many viewers fall somewhere in between. They may not want a steady

stream of "indecent" speech, and probably do not want to be

perceived (even by their cable operator, much less anyone who might

later acquire such information by subpoena or otherwise) as the

kind of people who do. They therefore will not affirmatively write

for access to the "indecent" channel even if they become aware of

it. Yet given a free choice in the matter, they might prefer to

have unimpeded, selective access to some but not all programs that

fall within that broad umbrella designation. Not only aficionados

of the arts or of politics but also the mildly curious might well

decide to watch an "unvarnished" documentary on the Mapplethorpe

exhibit if it is readily available, for example, but may not write

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to request an entire channel of indecency on the chance that this

and similar programs will be included. They may want to shield

their children from most "indecent" programming, yet may

occasionally find it appropriate to expose older children to frank,

even graphic discussions of sexuality and the AIDS epidemic,

including some programs that might fall within the FCC's definition

of "indecency" (or at any rate are close enough to the line that

cable operators will ban them altogether or relegate them to the

"indecent" channel). Whether they are "channel surfers" who like

to browse before settling on a program, or "appointment viewers"

who prefer to study a program guide and watch pre-selected

programs, this regulation makes it substantially more difficult for

cable subscribers to selectively control the content of their

viewing on a program-by-program basis. It thus places a

substantial burden on their speech rights as adult television

viewers, while adding nothing to their ability to exercise

selective control over their children's viewing. "At the heart of

the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should

decide for him or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of

expression, consideration, and adherence." Turner Broadcasting

System, Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2458 (1994). So too, when it

comes to umpiring the "decency" of the communications permitted

into our homes, the government's role should be restricted to one

which supports not replaces society's primary institution for moral

educationthe family.

III. SECTIONS 10(A) AND (B) DO NOT MEET THE "LEAST

RESTRICTIVE MEANS" TEST

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10The Court said that while technological means of

protecting children from indecent telephone messages might not be

"fail-safe" or "foolproof," 492 U.S. at 130 & n.10, nonetheless

there was nothing in the record to establish that they would not

be "extremely effective." Id. at 130. Thus while the Court

A. What Does the Test Require?

"Content-based regulations [of speech] are presumptively

invalid," R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 2542 (1992),

and are "subject ... to the most exacting scrutiny," Texas v.

Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 412 (1989) (quotation and citation omitted).

The Supreme Court has reiterated many times that a content-based

regulation of speech must be "the least restrictive means" to

achieve a compelling governmental interest. Sable, 492 U.S. at

126. "It is not enough to show that the Government's ends are

compelling; the means must be carefully tailored to achieve those

ends." Id. To survive strict scrutiny, then, a content-based

regulation must be "precisely drawn" to serve a compelling state

interest. Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S.

530, 540 (1980).

Supreme Court precedent certainly rejects the notion that a

content-based regulation of speech will survive regardless of the

burden on speech simply because it is the most effective means to

achieve a compelling state interest. Quite the opposite. In

Sable, for example, the government argued that a total ban on

telephone transmission of indecent speech was the most effective,

indeed the only fully effective way to achieve the government's

compelling objective of protecting children. 492 U.S. at 128. Yet

the Supreme Court decisively rejected that argument, conceding that

means other than a total ban might be less effective.10 The Court

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required that such alternative, less restrictive means be

"effective," it did not require that they be shown to be equally

as effective as a total ban. 

said that a flat ban on indecent speech was not "the least

restrictive means to further the articulated interest," id. at 126,

because its "denial of adult access to telephone messages which are

indecent but not obscene far exceeds that which is necessary to

limit the access of minors to such messages," id. at 131, and thus

the challenged regulation was not sufficiently "carefully

tailored." Id. at 126. As Sable demonstrates, a regulation can be

the most effective means of achieving a compelling interest and

still run afoul of the First Amendment if it burdens substantial

amounts of protected speech beyond what would be reasonably

effective in serving the compelling interest. Here, too, as in

Sable, the precision demanded of a content-based regulation is

decidedly missing.

B. What Are the Compelling Interests?

1. Protecting Children

The government asserts a compelling interest in "shielding

minors from the harmful effects of indecent programming" entering

their homes on cable television. Government Brief at 37. See also

Sable, 492 U.S. at 126 (government has a compelling interest in

"protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors"

which "extends to shielding minors from the influence of literature

that is not obscene by adult standards"); FCC v. Pacifica

Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 749 (1978). The exact nature of that

interest, however, is left unclear in both the government's brief

and the majority's opinion. The majority argues somewhat

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11Parents who elect to receive indecent programming can

still use "lockboxes" to lock out selected channels, of course. 

But in that case, it is the lockbox and not the § 10(b) blocking

scheme that is doing all the useful work in shielding children

from indecent programming. See infra Part III.C. 

inconsistently that the statute and regulations are aimed at

assisting parents in protecting children from indecent speech; and

that because parents are not doing an adequate job of supervising

their offsprings' viewing, the government must do it for them by

keeping indecent programs out of reach. See Maj. op. at 39 (citing

both rationales but treating them as one). While not inescapably

irreconcilable, these goals are often in tension.

If the justification for the ban-or-block scheme is that it

will assist parents in monitoring their children's viewing, § 10 is

certainly not precisely crafted to do that job. Rather than

enhance parental control, it merely deprives all adults as well as

children of any choice if their cable operator exercises regulatory

option (a) and bans indecent programming. Alternatively, if the

cable operator does not ban indecent programming altogether, adult

viewers are left with a single blanket choice under § 10(b),

whether to affirmatively invite the complete repertoire of the

"indecent" channel into their home (and perhaps to pay for it).

They may either keep all indecent leased access speech out of their

homes, or let all indecent programming in, thereby providing their

children with unimpeded access to such programming.11 Of what help

to parents is that?

In Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60 (1983),

the Supreme Court struck down a statute prohibiting advertisers

from mailing unsolicited advertisements for contraceptives to home

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addresses, on grounds that the ban was not precisely drawn to

achieve the government's interest. Although the government argued

the statute was designed to "aid[ ] parents' efforts to discuss

birth control with their children," the Court said the statute

"provides only the most limited incremental support for the

interest asserted." Id. at 73. While broadly burdening all adults

by making it more difficult for them to gain access to a

constitutionally-protected category of speech, the statute aided

only one narrow class of parents, those "who desire to keep their

children from confronting such mailings, [but] who are otherwise

unable to do so." Id. The Bolger case is remarkably similar to

ours. The statute and regulations here broadly burden all adults,

while assisting only the much narrower class of parents who desire

to shield their children from all indecent programming but for

whatever reasonabsence, fatigue, or unwillingness to work it

outfeel unable to do so.

As to the government's second prong, a purist interest in

protecting children, regardless of their parents' desiresa

justification about which we have grave doubtsthe government has

notably failed to build any record that parental control of

children's television viewing is not reliable by itself and must be

supplemented or even overridden by a government censor. Congress

and the FCC have in the past relied principally as a justification

for regulating indecent cable programming on the need to aid

parental supervision and guidance. See H.R. REP. NO. 934, 98th

Cong., 2d Sess. 70 (1984). Governmental restrictions directly

interfering with parents' rights to control the information their

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children receive are regarded with suspicion "regardless of the

strength of the governmental interest." See Bolger, 463 U.S. at

75. In particular, as demonstrated infra in Part III.C., there is

no record in the agency here demonstrating that measures currently

available such as lockbox technology have been markedly ineffective

in shielding children from access to indecent leased access

programming. On the other hand, the government has not established

that the ban-or-block requirement is sufficiently precise not to

overshoot its objective. Adults who desire access to any indecent

speech on leased access channels will be entirely deprived or

required to specifically request in writing access to an entire

channel of it 30 days in advance. If parents choose to request

such programming, their children, of course, will also be exposed

to it. In fact, the regulation does next to nothing to decouple

children's access to indecent programming from adults' access, or

to protect children whose parents purposefully bring indecent

programming into the home.

To the extent §§ 10(a) and (b) "protect" children at all, they

do so by relying on cable operators to ban indecent speech

entirely; or on parental inaction in not subscribing to the

segregated channel. The degree to which children are protected is

directly tied to the degree to which adult access is curtailed,

contrary to the well-established principle enunciated in Butler v.

Michigan that statutes designed to protect children may not "reduce

the adult population ... to ... only what is fit for children," 352

U.S. 380, 383 (1957), and in Bolger, that "[t]he level of discourse

reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be

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12Senator Helms argued on the Senate floor that the § 10(b)

segregation-and-blocking requirement "is precisely the same

method that Congress used to block dial-a-porn lines," a method

which the courts had "validated." 138 CONG. REC. S646 (daily ed.,

Jan. 30, 1992). The Commission similarly argued that "[t]he

blocking scheme upheld in these [telephone] cases is, in all

relevant respects, identical to that required by section 10(b)." 

8 F.C.C.R. at 1000 ¶ 13. These comparisons, however, are highly

inaccurate. As the Ninth Circuit observed in Information

Providers' Coalition v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866, 872 (9th Cir. 1991),

the telephone "reverse blocking" scheme, under which telephone

companies block all access to providers of indecent speech unless

consumers specifically request it in writing, is just one of

several alternative access methods permitted under the telephone

regulations, and is required only if the message provider elects

to bill through the telephone carrier. If the message provider

bills directly, it may rely instead on credit cards, access

codes, or consumer-controlled descrambling devices to screen out

children's access, while allowing adults virtually unimpeded,

instantaneous access. Thus in considering whether telephone

blocking is the least restrictive means, the court emphasized,

"it is critical that the [blocking] system not be considered in

vacuo " but instead must be seen as part of a "multi-tiered"

regulatory scheme which affords both speakers and adult listeners

numerous alternative, less burdensome avenues of communication. 

Id.

suitable for a sandbox." 463 U.S. at 74.

In this crucial respect, the provisions at issue here differ

from the FCC's regulations on indecent telephone communications,12

which allow adults to retain instantaneous and relatively

effortless access to such speech through means such as credit

cards, access codes, and consumer-controlled descrambling devices,

thereby effectively decoupling children's access from that of

adults. See Information Providers' Coalition v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866,

872 (9th Cir. 1991); Carlin Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 837 F.2d

546, 557 (2d Cir.) (analogizing these approaches to requirements

that sexually oriented magazines be kept under opaque covers or in

separate adults-only sections of bookstores; "[i]n each case

adults continue to have access to the materials, with minimal

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13The government argues in a footnote to its brief that this

is a "legitimate" governmental interest, but nowhere does it

suggest that it rises to the level of a "compelling" interest. 

See Government Brief at 37, n.16. Since only a compelling

governmental interest can sustain a content-based restriction of

speech, the government must be deemed to have waived the argument

that this justification is sufficient to support the challenged

statute and regulation, although the argument had been advanced

at the agency level, see 8 F.C.C.R. 999-1000, and on the Senate

floor, see 138 CONG. REC. S648 (daily ed., Jan. 30, 1992) (remarks

of Sen. Thurmond). I address the question here, however, in

response to the majority's reliance on this rationale. 

inconvenience, while minors' access is restricted"), cert. denied,

488 U.S. 924 (1988). See also Enforcement of Prohibitions on the

Use of Common Carriers for the Transmission of Obscene Materials,

2 F.C.C.R. 2714, 2719 ¶ 32 (1987) (Commission's objective in

designing telephone indecency regulations was "to select the option

effectively restricting access to the communications in question to

adults which is the least intrusive upon protected forms of

expression") (emphasis added). By foreclosing children's access in

a reasonably effective manner and only minimally burdening adults'

access, the telephone regulations achieve the precision of

regulation required by First Amendment jurisprudence. No such

precision was attempted in these cable regulations.

2. "Uninvited Intruder"

The majority posits an additional governmental interest:

protecting citizens from the uninvited "intruder" of indecent

programming.13 Maj. op. at 33-34. In the Pacifica case, the

Supreme Court noted that indecent broadcasts "confront[ ] the

citizen ... in the privacy of the home, where the individual's

right to be left alone plainly outweighs the First Amendment rights

of an intruder." Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748. But whether this

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14The majority correctly points out that more than 60% of

all households with televisions subscribe to cable. The majority

then adds that "[m]ost cable subscribers do not or cannot use

antennas to receive broadcast services," perhaps inadvertently

leaving the mistaken impression that without cable, most current

subscribers would be left with no television at all. In fact,

the quoted passage merely indicates that while subscribing to

cable, most households do not simultaneously receive over-the-air

broadcasts. See H.R. CONF. REP. NO. 862, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. 57

(1992). Although some consumers are in areas without broadcast

service, many (probably most) of these households could and would

receive television broadcasts if they terminated cable service. 

rationale could pass the compelling interest test in the broadcast

arena, it cannot qualify in the cable context. The FCC itself

takes the position that although cable television too enters the

home, it comes as an invited guest. First Report and Order, 8

F.C.C.R. at 1001 ¶ 17 ("Cable television ... may well be viewed as

an invitee into an individual's home"). See also Cruz v. Ferre,

755 F.2d 1415, 1420 (11th Cir. 1985); Community Television of

Utah, Inc. v. Roy City, 555 F. Supp. 1164, 1167-69 (D. Utah 1982).

Subscribers not only consent to, but must affirmatively request

cable service. Like magazine subscribers, cable subscribers pay

for the service and are free to cancel their subscription at any

time if they do not like the programming they receive. Cable

television service is indeed popular,14 but its widespread

dissemination does not transform it from an invitee to an intruder.

Compare Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748-50 (emphasizing narrowness of

holding based on "uniquely pervasive" nature of broadcasts over

public airwaves), with Bolger, 463 U.S. at 74 (declining to extend

Pacifica rationale to mailed advertisements even though mail

service is universal).

The government could conceivably have an interest in helping

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consumers "tailor their invitation" to cover only the cable

programming they want. But at least with regard to adults, that

interest surely cannot be a compelling one. In Bolger, the Supreme

Court said that the state's interest in "shield[ing] recipients of

mail from materials that they are likely to find offensive"

"carries little weight" because "[a]t least where obscenity is not

involved ... the fact that protected speech may be offensive to

some does not justify its suppression." Bolger, 463 U.S. at 71

(citation and quotation omitted). The First Amendment "does not

permit the government to prohibit speech as intrusive unless the

"captive' audience cannot avoid objectionable speech."

Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U.S. 530,

541-42 (1980) (emphasis added). As the FCC has repeatedly

acknowledged, those adults who object to indecent speech on leased

access channels may easily avoid such speech either by cancelling

their cable subscriptions and relying on broadcast television as an

alternative, or by blocking indecent programs or offensive channels

through voluntary lockboxes. See Broadcast Indecency, 67 Rad.

Reg.2d 1714, 1726 ¶ 62 (1990) (need to regulate indecency is far

greater for broadcast than for cable because lockboxes give

households control over cable programming entering the home);

Notice of Inquiry, 4 F.C.C.R. 8358, 8364 WW 50-51 (1989)

(suggesting regulation of broadcast indecency is justified in part

by availability of cable as an "alternative" means of adult access

to indecent programming where Pacifica-type concerns are not

implicated due to availability of lockboxes to control access).

The "intrusiveness" rationale cannot sustain the challenged

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15In Pacifica, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that

an individual offended by indecent broadcasts might simply turn

off her set, which the Court analogized to "saying that the

remedy for an assault is to run away after the first blow." 438

U.S. at 748-49. In the cable context, however, the options of

not subscribing or locking out offensive channels are in addition

to the option of turning off the set. No similar options are

available for broadcast media. 

16The 1984 Cable Act requires each cable operator to

"provide (by sale or lease) a device by which the subscriber can

prohibit viewing of a particular cable service during periods

selected by that subscriber." 47 U.S.C. § 544(d)(2)(A). These

in-home devices, known as "lockboxes" or "parental keys," allow

subscribers at their own discretion to block reception of any

channels they do not wish to receive, either indefinitely or for

shorter periods of time. Lockboxes thus allow parents to

restrict their children's access to selected channels "whether or

not parents are physically present and actively supervise." FCC

90-264, 5 F.C.C.R. 5297, 5305 (1990). 

provisions.15

C. Do Sections 10(a) and (b) Meet the Least Restrictive Means Test?

The government has the burden of showing that the means

adopted to achieve the compelling governmental interest are the

"least restrictive." See Sable, 492 U.S. at 126; Schad v. Borough

of Mount Ephraim, 452 U.S. 61, 74 (1981); Carlin Communications,

837 F.2d at 555 ("The Government bears the heavy burden of

demonstrating that the compelling state interest could not be

served by restrictions that are less intrusive on protected forms

of expression.") (citation and quotation omitted).

As petitioners point out, however, nothing in the record

establishes that cable lockboxeswhich cable operators are required

to provide16are not an effective means of protecting children from

"indecent" programming. Indeed, the record strongly suggests

otherwise, and even the majority apparently concedes the

effectiveness of lockboxes, Maj. op. at 38 n.22. Congress has

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found lockboxes to be "effective." See H.R. REP. NO. 934, 98th

Cong., 2d Sess. 70 (1984) (describing lockboxes as a "means to

effectively restrict the availability of such [indecent]

programming, particularly with respect to child viewers, without

restricting the First Amendment rights of the cable operator, the

cable programmer, or other cable viewers"). The Commission on

several occasions has attested to their efficacy. See, e.g., FCC

85-179, 1985 FCC Lexis 3475, ¶ 132, at *112-13 ("Indeed, we believe

that the provision for lockboxes largely disposes of issues

involving the Commission's standards for indecency ...."); id. at

¶ 139, *115 (deleting a previous FCC rule barring cable operators

from transmitting indecent origination programming, because the

rule had become "duplicative of and indeed surpassed by" the

lockbox requirement and other provisions of the 1984 Act under

which "the public will continue to be protected from obscene and

indecent programming"); FCC 90-264, 5 F.C.C.R. 5297, 5305 (1990)

("Technical means are available to block children's access to

indecent cable programs.... [Lockboxes] can restrict access by

children whether or not parents are physically present and actually

supervise."). Not only cable programmers, but cable operators

submitted comments during this rulemaking stating that lockboxes

are effective. See J.A. 94 (programmers); J.A. 250, 253

(operators).

Because the 1992 Cable Act indecency provisions were adopted

in a series of floor amendments, without benefit of committee

hearings or even substantial floor debate, their legislative

history is exceedingly scant. But nowhere in that meager history

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17Senator Helms did erroneously attribute to the Supreme

Court the view that "mandatory blocking" in general "is

constitutional and far more effective than voluntary blocking,"

138 CONG. REC. S647 (daily ed., Jan. 30, 1992). In fact, the

opinion he cited, Dial Info. Serv. Corp. v. Thornburgh, 938 F.2d

1535, 1542 (2d Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1072 (1992),

was authored by a panel of the Second Circuit, and its

conclusions reached only the telephone technology involved in the

case before it. In any event, Senator Helms's conclusory

approbation of that court's decision cannot be taken to represent

a considered judgment by Congress concerning the effectiveness of

cable lockbox technology. Cf. Sable, 492 U.S. at 129-30

(conclusory statements in floor debate unsupported by legislative

findings or indications of considered legislative judgment not

entitled to great weight). 

is there a single comment that anyone in Congress thought cable

lockboxes ineffective. See 138 CONG. REC. S646 et seq. (daily ed.,

Jan. 30, 1992) (no mention of lockboxes in Senate floor debate);

H.R. CONF. REP. NO. 862, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. 80 (1992) (no mention

of lockboxes in conference report describing section 10).17 Nor did

the Commission add any significant findings of its own with respect

to the effectiveness of cable lockboxes during this rulemaking.

See First Report and Order, 8 F.C.C.R. at 1000 (stating in

conclusory fashion, without specific findings, that "[w]e agree

with Congress' conclusion that the voluntary lockbox approach is

not likely to be as effective as cable operator-blocked channels").

The government nonetheless leans heavily on the analogy to

telephone technology, suggesting that "voluntary blocking"

techniques are ineffective as a means of shielding children from

indecent speech. The FCC, however, promulgated its telephone

indecency regulations based upon extensive and detailed findings

that voluntary blocking was not effective in the context of

telephone technology. See Regulations Concerning Indecent

Communications by Telephone, 5 F.C.C.R. 4926 (1990). The

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Commission did not conclude that voluntary blocking was in

principle unworkable across all technologies; nor did it reach any

conclusions whatsoever about cable technology. Instead, the

findings were based entirely on considerations specific to

telephone technology. That technology is fundamentally different

from cable.

First, the Commission found that in the telephone context

voluntary blocking was ineffective because telephone companies were

able to block only local dial-a-porn providers, and for

technological reasons were incapable of blocking long-distance

access to dial-a-porn services. Id. at ¶ 16 (telephone blocking

technology works by recognizing first three digits of seven-digit

local phone number, and blocking three-digit sequences assigned to

dial-a-porn services); see also Information Providers' Coalition,

928 F.2d at 873. Consequently, voluntary telephone blocking does

not prevent minors from accessing dial-a-porn services by long

distance calls. That concern is inapplicable in the cable

television context, because lockboxes can block any channel

received in the home.

Second, the Commission found that voluntary telephone blocking

was ineffective because telephones, including pay phones, are

ubiquitous and readily accessible to children outside the home. 5

F.C.C.R. 4926 at ¶ 16. Although cable television is widely

available, it is not nearly as accessible to unsupervised children

outside the home as is telephone service. Pay phones in particular

provide individual, unsupervised, private access to indecent

communications on street corners and in shopping malls, movie

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theaters, restaurants, gas stations, parks, and playgrounds.

Third, the Commission found that voluntary blocking was

ineffective in the telephone context because many parents were not

even aware that dial-a-porn services existed, much less that

voluntary blocking technology was available. Id. at WW 18, 20;

see also Dial Info. Serv., 938 F.2d at 1542 (half of residential

households in New York were unaware of either dial-a-porn services

or blocking technology). The level of parental awareness of

indecent programming and lockbox technology is far greater in the

cable context. Unlike telephone subscribers with access to

literally millions of telephone numbers, cable subscribers

typically receive only a few dozen channels, and parents would have

to be hermits to be unaware through newspapers and even television

itself of the debate over sex and violence on the tube. Parental

unawareness of indecent cable programming at the level of telephone

porn has not been established anywhere in the agency record. The

Commission's convincing showing that telephone blocking technology

was ineffective at shielding minors has no parallel in this case.

The majority acceptstoo readily, I thinkthe government's

contention that because the operator can establish no central

editorial control on leased access channels, indecent speech comes

into the home more "intermittently and randomly" on leased than on

regular channels, thereby defeating the effectiveness of lockbox

technology. See Maj. op. at 34-36. Because indecent programming

can appear on leased access channels at any time, the FCC says,

parents must either lock out leased access channels altogether

(thus depriving adults in the household of all leased access

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speech), or monitor leased access channels continually, locking and

unlocking the control boxes, risking "a slip up or a lapse" that

exposes their children to indecent programming. Maj. op. at 35.

Less drastic alternatives, however, immediately come to mind.

Segregating indecent leased access programming, either by channel

or by time (i.e., a reasonable "safe harbor" period), would

actively facilitate parental control because parents could use

lockbox technology more effectively, knowing which channels to lock

out, and at which times, to protect their children. Neither

Congress nor the FCC has considered whether segregation of indecent

leased access programming, when combined with existing lockbox

technology, might be an effective yet far less restrictive means of

achieving the statute's purported goals than the § 10 ban-or-block

scheme.

The majority also suggests that the cost of lockboxes may

deter some parents from acquiring and using them. Maj. op. at 38.

But again, if this is a real impediment (and there is no record

support to show it is), less restrictive means than a ban-or-block

scheme are at hand. Cost-spreadingraising everyone's costs the

small amount it would take to provide free lockboxes to all

takerswould make lockboxes readily available. In fact, many cable

operators have already converted to "addressable" systems that

incorporate lockbox technology into the cable box that every

subscriber receives. See J.A. 316-17. These addressable systems

accomplish both cost-spreading and universal availability of

lockbox technology. Neither Congress nor the FCC considered this

new advance in technology.

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Finally, neither Congress, the FCC, nor the majority has taken

account of where the cost burden of the segregate-and-block scheme

will fall, and with what implications for free speech. There are

only a few prospects: the cable operators, producers of "indecent"

speech, leased access programmers generally, subscribers to

"indecent" speech, or subscribers generally. The majority concedes

that if the cost is borne by cable operators, it could create

sufficient incentives for operators to ban (rather than block)

indecent programming so as to implicate state action, and therefore

to invalidate § 10(a) as an indirect form of state censorship. See

Maj. op. at 24. But the majority never considers that if the cost

of segregation-and-blocking is placed entirely on programmers of

"indecent" speechor on those who wish to receive such speechthe

regulation will place a direct and heavy burden on a

content-defined class of constitutionally protected speech.

Whether that burden would be so great as to actually deter such

speech, we cannot say; nothing in the record warrants a conclusion

either way. But if the burden is on the government to show that

its content-based regulation is the least restrictive means, it

must face and explain away those potential problems.

IV. STATE ACTION IS INDEED IN SECTION

10(C) AND IT DOES NOT

MEET THE "LEAST RESTRICTIVE MEANS" TEST

A. Does State Action Inhere in Section 10(c)?

State action also inheres in the statutory scheme of § 10(c).

In the 1984 Cable Act, Congress authorized local franchising

authorities to require cable operators to set aside channels for

noncommercial public, educational, and governmental use ("PEG

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18Section 531(e) contains an exception, however: cable

operators may under certain circumstances ban programming that is

"obscene or ... otherwise unprotected by the Constitution of the

United States." 47 U.S.C. § 544(d)(1). 

access"), 47 U.S.C. § 531(b), and forbade cable operators from

exercising any editorial control over programming on those

channels, 47 U.S.C. § 531(e).18 Then, in § 10(c) of the 1992 Cable

Act, Congress changed the rules with regard to a content-defined

category of speech, authorizing cable operators "to prohibit the

use [of PEG channels] for any programming which contains ...

sexually explicit conduct," Pub. L. No. 102-385, § 10(c), 106 Stat.

at 1486, which the FCC has interpreted to mean "indecent"

programming, Implementation of Section 10 of the Cable Consumer

Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 58 Fed. Reg. 19,623, 19,626

(1993).

Quite plainly, the revised statutory scheme is on its face a

content-based regulation of protected speech. "As a general rule,

laws that by their terms distinguish favored speech from disfavored

speech on the basis of their ... [content] are content-based."

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2459

(1994). Under the statute, cable operators and programmers are

subject to two fundamentally different statutorily-assigned schemes

of substantive and procedural rights, duties, and burdens with

respect to PEG programming. Which of those schemes applies depends

solely on whether the content of the programming meets the

government's definition of "indecent." Cf. id. at 2459 ("Our

precedents ... apply the most exacting scrutiny to regulations that

suppress, disadvantage, or impose differential burdens upon speech

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19Although our emphasis is properly on the statutory scheme

of § 10(c) itself, which petitioners challenge here, it is also

clear that the nature of the cable operator's decision to ban

indecent programming under § 10(c) is of an entirely different

character from the exercise of professional medical judgment at

issue in Blum v. Yaretsky. As the Blum Court explained, those

medical judgments were made "according to professional standards

that are not established by the State," 457 U.S. at 1008. In

contrast, the statute here forbids the cable operator from

exercising, with respect to leased access programming, broad

editorial discretion "according to professional standards ... not

established by the State." Instead it specifically authorizes a

single, highly constrained decisionwhether or not to ban

material classified as "indecent" under a government-imposed

definition. 

because of its content.") (emphasis added); id. at 2460

(must-carry rules are not content-based because they "impose

burdens and confer benefits [on cable operators and broadcasters]

without reference to the content of speech" and "interfere with

with cable operators' editorial discretion" even-handedly, so that

"the extent of the interference does not depend on the content of

the ... programming"). The result is that under the government's

scheme of differential regulation, indecent speechas defined by

the governmentalone is subject to banning by cable operators.19

To borrow language from the original panel opinion, "the government

first strips a cable operator of editorial power over access

channels, then singles out material it wishes to eliminate, and

finally permits the cable operator to pull the trigger on that

material only." Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 10 F.3d 812,

821 (D.C. Cir. 1993), vacated, 15 F.3d 186 (1994).

What reason could Congress possibly have for assigning

operators and programmers different rights, duties, and procedures

on the basis of such a governmentally-defined content distinction?

The only answer is that the government disfavors "indecent" speech,

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20The "impetus" for the suppression of disfavored speech

thus clearly comes in the first instance from the state, and not

a private actor. Cf. Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163,

172-73 (1972) (when "impetus" for discrimination comes from a

private party, state must have "significantly involved itself" to

establish state action); Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419

U.S. 345, 356-57 (1974) (state's passive acquiesence in shutoff

policy initiated by regulated utility does not implicate state

action; the utility's "exercise of the choice allowed it by

state law where the initiative comes from it and not from the

State, does not make its action ... "state action'...."). Moose

Lodge and Jackson implicitly suggest that when the "impetus" or

"initiative" for the deprivation comes from the stateas here,

through enactment of § 10(c)state action is more likely present. 

and seeks through this differential regulation to limit speech in

that disfavored categorya purpose the government does not disavow.

This purpose has nothing to do with restoring genuine "editorial

control" to cable operators. The majority's attempt to

characterize § 10(c) as a return of "editorial control" sunders the

provision from the context of its enactment as part of a broader

measure seeking to suppress indecent speech, as well as from its

statutory moorings as a singular, content-based exception to an

otherwise flat prohibition on the exercise of private judgment.

Surely if Congress adopted this kind of selective approach to other

content-defined categories of speechfor example, authorizing cable

operators to ban programs discussing military spending but no other

categorythe aim of the government's scheme of dual regulation,

suppressing the disfavored speech, would be transparent.20

We thus have a congressionally-enacted statute that both

facially discriminates on the basis of the content of speech, and

has a "manifest purpose" to "burden ... speech of a particular

content," Turner Broadcasting, 114 S. Ct. at 2461 (either facial

content-based discrimination or "manifest purpose" to benefit or

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burden speech on the basis of content is sufficient to make the

statute content-based, triggering strict scrutiny). With rare

exceptions, " "[r]egulations which permit the Government to

discriminate on the basis of the content of the message cannot be

tolerated under the First Amendment," Simon & Schuster v. New York

Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 116 (1991) (quoting Regan v. Time,

Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 648-49 (1984)).

When the § 10(c) statutory scheme works as intended, and cable

programmers and adult audiences are deprived of opportunities to

communicate and receive indecent speech, that deprivation is

"caused by the exercise of some right or privilege created by the

State," Lugar, 457 U.S. at 937, namely the cable operator's narrow

statutory authorization to ban indecent speech (and only indecent

speech). And Congress and the FCC, the "part[ies] charged with the

deprivation," "may fairly be said to be ... state actor[s]." Id.

Because the dual requirements of Lugar are met, the deprivation is

"fairly attributable" to the government, id., and state action is

present.

As the Lugar Court explained, "[c]areful adherence to the

"state action' requirement preserves an area of individual freedom

by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power,"

and "avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials,

responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed."

Id. at 936. Here, a determination that state action is present

does not intrude into an "area of individual freedom"no such

sphere was left after Congress denied cable operators control over

the content of PEG programming in the 1984 Act, and it is patently

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obvious that through § 10(c) Congress has not foreshortened but

rather extended the "reach of federal law" by creating a narrow,

governmentally-structured choice whether to ban a single

governmentally-defined category of speech. Where federal law

reaches, constitutional scrutiny must follow. Nor is it unfair to

attribute to the government the intended and wholly foreseeable

consequence of its statute, the suppression of indecent speech.

Indeed, under these circumstances it would be grossly unfair and

contrary to the principles underlying the state action doctrine to

allow the government to evade constitutional responsibility for its

own conduct, simply because it has set up a private party as the

triggerman in its carefully crafted scheme.

B. Does § 10(c) Meet the Least Restrictive Means Test?

Section 10(c), which authorizes cable operators to ban

indecent speech on PEG channels, is fatally flawed because the

government has failed to show that the regulation will make any

significant contribution toward furthering the government's

asserted interest in protecting children from indecent television

programming, much less that it is the "least restrictive means" to

achieve that purpose. Cf. Sable, 492 U.S. at 126 (the means chosen

must "further the articulated interest"). Where § 10(c) achieves

its intended effect, the result will be a total ban on indecent

speech, and therefore a total deprivation of programmers' and adult

audiences' rights to communicate and receive such speech. We do

not know from the agency record, however, whether the regulation

will "protect" one percent, twenty percent, fifty percent, or one

hundred percent of the nation's children. Indeed, that is left to

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the standardless discretion of cable operators. What we do know is

that § 10(c), like §§ 10(a) and (b), will be of no use in helping

parents supervise their children's viewing; the decision is taken

out of their hands, and placed in the hands of their cable

operator.

In addition, just as with the §§ 10(a) and (b) ban-or-block

scheme, § 10(c) shields children from indecent programming only by

simultaneously depriving programmers and adult viewers of their

speech rights, without attempting to decouple children's access

from that of adults. Consequently, to the extent § 10(c) has any

effect in shielding children from indecent programming, it also

impermissibly "reduce[s] the adult population ... to ... only what

is fit for children." Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. at 383. I

would conclude that the government has not shown that the § 10(c)

permissive ban scheme is the "least restrictive means" to achieve

a compelling governmental interest.

V. CONCLUSION

Because Section 10 is state action restricting

constitutionally-protected speech, and because the government has

not met its constitutionally-imposed burden of showing on this

record that these provisions are the least restrictive means

necessary to achieve the compelling governmental interest of

protecting children in the context of the family unit, I

respectfully dissent.

EDWARDS, Chief Judge, dissenting in part: I agree with the

judgment reached by the dissentthat sections 10(a) and 10(b),

together, constitute state action and do not provide the least

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restrictive means to further the Government's asserted interest in

promoting the well-being of children. According to the Government,

children face harm from exposure to "indecent" programming on

leased access cable television, so it is contended that Congress

may lawfully act to ban such programming. There is not one iota of

evidence in the record, however, to support the claim that exposure

to indecency is harmfulindeed, the nature of the alleged "harm" is

never explained. This being the case, there is little doubt in my

mind that the statute as presently written fails constitutional

scrutiny.

I write separately because I do not entirely agree with the

analysis underlying Judge Wald's dissent. Frankly, I think that

Congress may properly pass a law to facilitate parental supervision

of their children, i.e., a law that simply segregates and blocks

indecent programming and thereby helps parents control whether and

to what extent their children are exposed to such programming.

However, a law that effectively bans all indecent programmingas

does the statute at issue in this casedoes not facilitate parental

supervision. In my view, my right as a parent has been preempted,

not facilitated, if I am told that certain programming will be

banned from my cable television. Congress cannot take away my

right to decide what my children watch, absent some showing that my

children are in fact at risk of harm from exposure to indecent

programming. But Congress surely can, I think, act to help me

implement the decisions that I make as a parent. However, this

latter interestfacilitating parental supervisionhas not been

advanced by the Government in this case.

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Because the foregoing propositions seem self-evident to me, I

will refrain from an elaborate constitutional analysis of section

10's provisions. It is not so much the constitutionality of these

provisions that I find perplexing, but rather the shortsightedness

of Congress in enacting a scheme that does so little to deal with

the ills of television. At bottom, I think this case is much ado

about nothing much.

* * * * *

I agree with the majority that section 10(c) does not

constitute state action and, therefore, does not pose any

constitutional problems. Section 10(c) merely directs the FCC to

allow cable operators to prohibit the use of their PEG-access

channels for programming which contains obscenity, sexually

explicit conduct, or material soliciting or promoting unlawful

conduct. Cable operators' decisions to allow or prohibit such

speech are their own; their action or inaction does not trigger

any alternative regulatory regimes. In section 10(c), Congress

merely returns some editorial control to cable operators, and this

is not the least bit objectionable in my view.

Sections 10(a) and 10(b), however, constitute state action.

These two provisions, read together, do not merely return some

editorial control to cable operators, they tend to mandate a

preferred result. Section 10(a) allows cable operators to ban

indecent speech, and section 10(b) mandates that those cable

operators who do not prohibit indecency must segregate and block

the indecent programming. While the language of these two

provisions contains a choiceindeed, the majority focuses on this

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"choice"the choice is of little moment. Judge Wald's dissent is

persuasive on this point.

If the statute did not contain section 10(b), I would agree

with the majority that, section 10(a), itself, does not constitute

state action, for the same reasons that section 10(c) is

unobjectionable. Section 10(a), standing alone, merely directs the

FCC to allow cable operators to prohibit indecent programming. But

section 10(a) does not stand alone. Section 10(b) hinges on

section 10(a): it speaks only to those who "have not voluntarily

prohibited under subsection ( [a] )" and mandates that they

segregate and block indecent programming.

In analyzing sections 10(a) and 10(b) separately, the majority

effectively ducks the question of incentives. But I cannot

comprehend how this issue can be avoided in any decision regarding

the legality of the Act. If you are a cable operator interested in

making money and you are faced with the virtually cost-free option

of banning indecency or the likely costly option of segregating and

blocking indecent programming, which option would you choose? The

answer seems easy. However, the majority declines to indulge the

obvious, contending that "the Commission has yet to consider the

matter" of whether the costs associated with segregating and

blocking must be borne by the cable operator. The majority also

finds that petitioners have not met their burden of proving that

the costs of implementing section 10(b) would drive cable operators

to ban indecent speech under section 10(a), a conclusion that seems

a bit circular given that the Commission has not yet considered the

matter. Nevertheless, the majority admits that "[t]he situation

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might well be different if the Commission were to adopt a policy

that created a significant economic disincentive for operators to

segregate and block indecent programming." I think that

financially minded cable operators will have little doubt which

option to choose. Because sections 10(a) and 10(b) are

linkedindeed the costs associated with section 10(b) will prompt

financially minded cable operators to choose section 10(a)the

majority's attempt to divide and conquer is not ultimately

persuasive.

If the statute did not contain section 10(a), I might agree

with the majority that section 10(b) passes constitutional muster.

The Government claims that the statute is meant to protect children

from the harmful effects of indecent programming. Had the

Government offered some evidence of the harmful effects of indecent

programming on children, I might find section 10(b), standing

alone, constitutional. "When the Government defends a regulation

on speech as a means to ... prevent anticipated harms, it must do

more than simply "posit the existence of the disease sought to be

cured.' " Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct.

2445, 2470 (1994) (plurality) (quoting Quincy Cable TV, Inc. v.

FCC, 768 F.2d 1434, 1455 (D.C. Cir. 1985)). The Government "must

demonstrate that the recited harms are real, not merely

conjectural, and that the regulation will in fact alleviate these

harms in a direct and material way." Id. (citing Edenfield v.

Fane, 113 S. Ct. 1792, 1798-99 (1993)). The Government has not

offered one shred of evidence that indecent programming harms

children.

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The Government might have suggested that section 10(b)'s

segregate-and-block scheme was meant to further a compelling

interest in facilitating parental supervision of the cable programs

their children watch. Indeed, in a case argued the same day as

this one, the Government described its interest in promoting the

well-being of children as encompassing both the interest in

shielding children from indecency and facilitating parental

supervision. See Brief for Respondents at 16-17, ACT v. FCC (No.

93-1092). This second interest undoubtedly finds ample support in

Supreme Court case law. See, e.g., Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S.

629, 639 (1968) (stating that "constitutional interpretation has

consistently recognized that the parents' claim to authority in

their own household to direct the rearing of their children is

basic in the structure of our society"); Pierce v. Society of

Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35 (1925) (striking state law requiring

children to attend public schools as "interfer[ing] with the

liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and

education of children under their control"); Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390, 401 (1923) (striking state law that prohibited

teaching in foreign languages to children as interfering with "the

power of parents to control the education of their own"). Contrary

to Judge Wald's dissent, I do believe that a segregate-and-block

scheme would facilitate parental supervision.

In fact, I might find that section 10(b), standing alone, is

the least restrictive means of furthering the Government's interest

in facilitating parental supervision of children. A

segregate-and-block system can help parents monitor the programming

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their children watch. For those parents who want to keep all

indecent programming out of the house, it provides an easy

mechanism to do so. For those parents who wish to expose their

children to the myriad of leased-access programming, section 10(b)

allows them to subscribe to the segregated channels. For those

parents who wish to do their own screening, it undoubtedly helps to

know that all of the leased-access "indecent" programming is

located on one channel. Those parents can control their children's

viewing either by instructing them about what they may not watch or

by using a lockbox or some such device which gives television

owners control over unwanted programs. As Judge Wald notes, the

segregate-and-block methodology embraced by section 10(b) is a

rather unsophisticated approach to achieve a goal of parental

supervision: surely Congress has reason to know that there are

more efficient technological devices available to segregate and

block categories of programs and thereby facilitate parental

choices of preferred programming. Despite the legislative failure

to adopt more efficient alternatives, I would still find section

10(b) unobjectionable if it stood alone and if the Government

justified it as a means to facilitate parental supervision. What

I might think if the statute were written differently, however,

does not help me deal with what is now before the court.

As I see it, sections 10(a) and 10(b) are connected parts of

a whole, which work in tandem to produce an absolute ban on

indecent speech. A ban does nothing to facilitate parents'

supervision of their children, unless we assume that all parents'

views are not only identical to each other, but also the same as

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the Government's. This assumption is preposterous, and the

Constitution simply does not permit a flat ban of protected speech.

* * * * *

There is one other aspect of the majority opinion that I find

troubling. In a somewhat obscure line of analysis, the majority

intimates that cable should be subject to the same First Amendment

protections as broadcast. To advance this point, the majority

argues that "the constitutionality of indecency regulation in a

given medium turns in part, on the medium's characteristics" and

that "it is apparent that leased access programming has far more in

common with radio broadcast in Pacifica than with the telephone

communication in Sable." This simple equation is superficially

appealing, but it does not produce the result suggested by the

majority.

For many reasons that need not be addressed here, I surely

agree with the majority that it makes no sense to treat broadcast

and cable differently. It does not follow from this, however, that

the First Amendment protections afforded to cable should be reduced

to the level normally reserved for broadcast. See FCC v. Pacifica,

438 U.S. 726, 748 (1978) ("[O]f all forms of communication, it is

broadcasting that has received the most limited First Amendment

protection."). In fact, the Supreme Court recently decided this

question and rejected the position seemingly advanced by the

majority:

We address ... the ... contention that regulation of

cable television should be analyzed under the same First

Amendment standard that applies to regulation of

broadcast television.... [T]he rationale for applying a

less rigorous standard of First Amendment scrutiny to

broadcast regulation, whatever its validity in the cases

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elaborating it, does not apply in the context of cable

regulation.

Turner Broadcasting, 114 S. Ct. at 2456.

Content-based regulations of cable television programming must

satisfy exacting First Amendment scrutiny. And a regulation

premised on a claim that "indecent" programming causes harm to

children must be justified by some evidence of the harm claimed.

POSTSCRIPT

This court has spent a great deal of its energy analyzing

section 10: the court has now heard the case twice; and it has

produced opinions of considerable length, analyzing a great deal of

constitutional case law. And yet, I cannot help but wonder what

Congress is doing. Why has Congress chosen to regulate "indecency"

on leased-access and PEG- access channels, as opposed to all cable

channels? Congress claims it is concerned with protecting children

from the ills of televised indecency. Is there any viewing

individual who would suggest that leased-access and PEG-access

channels constitute the principal sources of our indecency problems

on television? While, as the majority states, "there is no

constitutional rule forbidding Congress from addressing only the

most severe aspects of this problem," it is ridiculous to believe

that leased-access and PEG-access present the most severe aspects

of the indecency problem on television in American society.

The majority acknowledges that "there undoubtedly is indecent

programming on other cable channels," but notes that "[o]perators

have the power to impose a segregation and blocking system on the

vast majority of their non-access channels, because their editorial

control over such channels is unfettered by federal regulation."

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While cable operators may have that option, there is nothing to

suggest that they are voluntarily segregating and blocking indecent

programming in the absence of the Government's regulatory hand.

And if Congress really believes that indecent programming is

harmful to children, why are commercial cable operators given a

free hand to do as they see fit? This makes no sense whatsoever.

The majority quotes the FCC, stating that cable operators

generally may provide indecent programming through "per-program or

per-channel services that subscribers must specifically request in

advance, in the same manner as under the blocking approach mandated

by section 10(b)." However, this is no answer at all, because the

current arrangements for cable subscriptions do not purport to

segregate "indecent" programs on select channels (or otherwise

carefully identify them) so that they might be systematically

offered in isolation apart from other commercial offerings.

Furthermore, many subscribers purchase cable service to get

improved television reception, and a number of basic cable

subscriptions are packaged to include channels that offer some

indecent programming; so these subscribers will get indecent

programming whether they want it or not. In short, if "indecency"

really is a problem on television, then the source of the problem

resides on the commercial cable stations, not on leased-access and

PEG-access channels. Yet, Congress has done nothing to facilitate

parental supervision in connection with commercial cable programs.

Even more curious is Congress's failure to address violence on

television. One recent poll revealed that eighty percent of

Americans surveyed agreed that violence on TV shows is harmful to

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1See, e.g., ALBERT BANDURA, AGGRESSION: A SOCIAL LEARNING ANALYSIS

72-76 (1973); WILLIAM A. BELSON, TELEVISION VIOLENCE AND THE ADOLESCENT

BOY (1978); GEORGE COMSTOCK, THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN TELEVISION 159-238

(1989); MONROE M. LEFKOWITZ ET AL., GROWING UP TO BE VIOLENT: A

LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGGRESSION (1977); L. Rowell

Huesmann, et al., The Effects of Television Violence on

Aggression: A Reply to a Skeptic, in PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL POLICY 191

(Peter Suedfeld & Philip E. Tetlock, eds., 1992); David Pearl,

Familial, Peer, and Television Influences on Aggressive and

Violent Behavior, in CHILDHOOD AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE: SOURCES OF

INFLUENCE, PREVENTION, AND CONTROL 231, 236-37 (David H. Crowell et

al., eds., 1987). 

society. See 139 CONG. REC. S5050-52 (daily ed. Apr. 28, 1993)

(summary of Times Mirror poll). And there is significant evidence

suggesting a causal connection between viewing violence on

television and antisocial violent behavior.1 Yet, as this case

shows, Congress has focused on a mere pittance in addressing

indecency on PEG- and leased-access cable, where viewership is

paltry. And in focusing on indecency, as opposed to violence,

Congress has addressed a "problem" that has yet to be shown to have

any harmful effects. This is hard to fathom.

It is not my role as a judge to legislate, I understand. But

it is hard to restrain from comment when one is asked to spend so

much time on something of so little consequence in terms of its

overall effect on society. From my vantage point, Congress seems

to have sent the FCC on a fool's errand. Even if section 10 were

constitutionalas the majority holds that it isone still would be

tempted to ask, "so what?". I cannot dismiss the importance of the

First Amendment rights at stake, however, so I dissent. In my

view, sections 10(a) and 10(b) of the Act as presently written

offend the Constitution.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in

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1See majority opinion at Part III; dissenting opinion of

Judge Wald at Part I; dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Edwards

at 2. 

part: Because the court is in agreement that § 10(b) constitutes

state action,1 the most important question in this case is whether

the segregation and blocking method established by § 10(b) is the

least restrictive means to accomplish the compelling state

interests asserted. Essentially for the reasons noted by the

Supreme Court in Sable Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115

(1989), the government has failed to support § 10(b) with the

requisite showing that the segregation and blocking method

represents the least restrictive alternative. It is neither

carefully tailored nor supported by evidence that less restrictive

alternatives are not readily available. Parts II and III of Judge

Wald's dissenting opinion ably describe these deficiencies, and I

join her conclusion that § 10(b) is unconstitutional whether it

stands alone or in conjunction with the other provisions of § 10.

The court, however, has an obligation to save rather than

destroy as much of the statute as is constitutional, see Tilton v.

Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 684 (1991) (citations omitted), and, in

my view, § 10(b) is severable. Consequently I cannot join Judge

Wald's analysis of the severability of § 10(b) from the remainder

of § 10 or the constitutionality of the provisions remaining after

severance. See dissenting opinion of Judge Wald at 10 n.7, 28-31;

see also dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Edwards at 5.

The standard for determining the severability of an

unconstitutional provision is well established: Unless

it is evident that the Legislature would not have enacted

those provisions which are within its power,

independently of that which is not, the invalid part may

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2Senator Fowler offered § 10(c) in order to remove the

restriction on the authority of cable operators to prohibit

indecent programming on PEG channels. 138 CONG. REC. S649 (daily

ed. Jan. 30, 1992). He referred to the use of PEG channels to

"basically solicit prostitution through easily discernible

shams." Id. Senator Wirth, also decrying the abuse of PEG

channels, spoke in support of § 10(c) as "giv[ing] a very clear

be dropped if what is left is fully operative as a law.

Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 684 (1987) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S.

1, 108-09; Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporate Comm'n., 286 U.S.

210, 234 (1932). "[T]he presumption is in favor of severability."

Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 653 (1984) (plurality opinion);

see also Alaska Airlines, 480 U.S. at 685 ("the unconstitutional

provision must be severed unless the statute created in its absence

is legislation that Congress would not have enacted").

This presumption is not rebutted with respect to the three

remaining subsections(a), (c), and (d). It is true, as Judge Wald

notes, that one purpose of § 10 was to "forbid cable companies from

inflicting their unsuspecting subscribers with sexually explicit

programs on leased access channels." 138 CONG. REC. S646 (daily ed.

Jan. 30, 1992) (Senator Helms). See dissenting opinion of Judge

Wald at 10 n.7. Senator Helms' statement quoted by Judge Wald,

however, is not the only statement of Congressional intent with

respect to § 10. Congress also intended to free cable operators

from the burden of being required to carry indecent materials on

both leased access and PEG channels. The clear purpose of § 10(c)

is to empower cable operators to exercise editorial judgment over

their PEG channels to prohibit sexually explicit conduct and

materials soliciting or promoting unlawful conduct.2 Similarly,

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signal to the cable companies that, in fact, they can police

their own systems, which they cannot do now. This is a service

not only to the public, but, also, to the cable companies

themselves." Id. at S650. 

3In introducing what became §§ 10(a) & (b), Senator Helms

explained that "[t]he problem is that cable companies are

required by law to carry, on leased access channels, any and

every program that comes along...." 138 CONG. REC. S646 (daily

ed. Jan. 30, 1992) (regarding § 27 of the Senate bill). He

explained that his amendment had two parts:

Under my amendment, cable operators will have the

right to reject such filthy programming, and if they do

not reject it, consumers have the right to reject such

programming from being fed into their homes.

....

... First, the pending amendment will allow a

cable company to decline to carry on leased access

channels programs that "describe or depict sexual or

excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive

manner."

....

The second part of the pending amendment ...

requires the FCC to set rules [to segregate and block]

unless a subscriber requests in writing such channel to

be unblocked.

Id. In support of Senator Helms' amendment, Senator Thurmond

also expressed a desire to relieve cable operators of the

obligation of carrying indecent programming. "The problem is

that cable companies are required by current law to carry on

these leased channels any program that may come along." Id. at

S648. 

one of the purposes of §§ 10(a) & (b) was to restore editorial

control over leased access programming to the cable operators, a

goal deemed of importance to several Senators who spoke in support

of the amendments.3 See also majority opinion at 19 ("The

immediate aim ... is to give cable operators the prerogative not to

carry indecent programming on their access channels."). Implicit

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4I agree with the reasoning in Part II B only to the extent

that the court concludes that petitioners have failed to show

here, on this record, that the leased access and PEG channels are

"public forums." See dissenting opinion of Judge Wald at 10 n.8. 

in these comments and the adoption of § 10(c) alone with respect to

PEG channels, is the expectation that the restoration of such

control would serve the Congressional goal of reducing the amount

of indecent programming that appears on cable television and is

therefore potentially accessible to children. Thus, it is clear

that §§ 10(a) & (c) do fulfill at least one of the purposes of §

10, even when § 10(b) is severed. See 2 NORMAN J. SINGER, SUTHERLAND

ON STATUTES & STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION § 44.07, at 518 (5th ed. 1993) (If

a statute "attempts to accomplish two or more objects and is void

as to one, it may still be valid as to the others.") (citation

omitted).

Once § 10(b) is severed, § 10(a) no less than § 10(c) would be

constitutional. See generally majority opinion Part II;4 see also

dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Edwards at 2. Although the

question is not without difficulty, that §§ 10(a) & (c) restore to

cable operators editorial control over a narrow and content-based

class of speech, see dissenting opinion of Judge Wald at 30, does

not render them unconstitutional. See majority opinion at 14-15.

Without the alternative regulatory scheme, imposing the combined

technical, administrative, and financial burdens on cable operators

as exists under § 10(b), the cable operator is left with the

option, on the one hand, to allow, encourage, or facilitate

indecent speech, or, on the other hand, to ban or otherwise impede

indecent speech; there is no state imposed burden on the choice.

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Accordingly, I concur in the judgment of the court upholding

§§ 10(a), 10(c) and 10(d), but I dissent from the holding in Part

III that the government has met its burden to show that § 10(b) is

the least restrictive alternative; in that regard I join Parts II

and III of Judge Wald's dissenting opinion.

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