The conference committee considered, and rejected, an exemption proposed by Rep. Rick White for material with scientific, literary, artistic or political value. The U.S. Justice Department, faced with the thankless task of trying to save a statute that was clearly overbroad, argued prosecutorial discretion to the court. The panel didn't buy it. Even if we were to place confidence in the reasonable judgment of the representatives of the Department of Justice who appeared before us, the Department is not a monolithic structure, and individual U.S. attorneys in the various districts of the country have or appear to exercise some independence. . . . But the bottom line is that the First Amendment should not be interpreted to require us to entrust the protection it affords to the judgment of prosecutors.
Prosecutors come and go.
Even federal judges are limited to life tenure. The First Amendment remains to give protection to future generations as well. Categorizing the Internet One of the most important issues discussed in this case was how to compare the Internet to other forms of mass communications to determine how much regulation of protected speech should be allowed. Different forms of mass communications allow for varying levels of regulation. Broadcast media, for example, have the greatest level of regulation because, as the argument goes, television enjoys a high degree of pervasiveness in homes and there is a scarcity of bandwidth.