Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 894

529US3

Unit: $U60

[09-26-01 12:39:04] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 803 (2000)

819

Opinion of the Court

To sustain its statute, the Government was required to
show that the ﬁrst was the right answer. According to the
District Court, however, the ﬁrst and third possibilities were
“equally consistent” with the record before it.
Ibid. As for
the second, the record was “not clear” as to whether enough
Ibid.
notice had been issued to give § 504 a ﬁghting chance.
The case, then, was at best a draw. Unless the District
Court’s ﬁndings are clearly erroneous, the tie goes to free
expression.

The District Court began with the problem of signal bleed
itself, concluding “the Government has not convinced us that
[signal bleed] is a pervasive problem.”
Id., at 708–709, 718.
The District Court’s thorough discussion exposes a central
weakness in the Government’s proof: There is little hard evi-
dence of how widespread or how serious the problem of sig-
nal bleed is.
Indeed, there is no proof as to how likely any
child is to view a discernible explicit image, and no proof of
the duration of the bleed or the quality of the pictures or
sound. To say that millions of children are subject to a risk
of viewing signal bleed is one thing; to avoid articulating the
true nature and extent of the risk is quite another. Under
§ 505, sanctionable signal bleed can include instances as
ﬂeeting as an image appearing on a screen for just a few
seconds. The First Amendment requires a more careful as-
sessment and characterization of an evil in order to justify a
regulation as sweeping as this. Although the parties have
taken the additional step of lodging with the Court an assort-
ment of videotapes, some of which show quite explicit bleed-
ing and some of which show television static or snow, there
is no attempt at explanation or context; there is no discus-
sion, for instance, of the extent to which any particular tape
is representative of what appears on screens nationwide.

The Government relied at trial on anecdotal evidence to
support its regulation, which the District Court summarized
as follows: