Opinion ID: 158478
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does the Regulation Directly and Materially Advance the State's Interests?

Text: 39 Under the next prong of Central Hudson, the government must demonstrate that the harms it recites are real and that its restriction will in fact alleviate them to a material degree. Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U.S. 761, 771 (1993); accord Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U.S. 476, 487 (1995). This burden is not satisfied by mere speculation or conjecture. Edenfield, 507 U.S. at 770. On the record before us, the government fails to meet its burden. 40 The government presents no evidence showing the harm to either privacy or competition is real. Instead, the government relies on speculation that harm to privacy and competition for new services will result if carriers use CPNI. In Edenfield, the Supreme Court struck down a Florida ban on CPA in-person solicitation because the state had presented no evidence -- anecdotal or empirical -- that such solicitation created the dangers of fraud, overreaching, or compromised independence that the state sought to combat. See 507 U.S. at 771; cf. Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 515 U.S. 618, 626-27 (1995) (upholding restriction on solicitation of accident victims within thirty days of accident, based on two-year study and written report analyzing statistically and anecdotally the impacts of such solicitation). The FCC faces the same problem here. While protecting against disclosure of sensitive and potentially embarrassing personal information may be important in the abstract, we have no indication of how it may occur in reality with respect to CPNI. Indeed, we do not even have indication that the disclosure might actually occur. The government presents no evidence regarding how and to whom carriers would disclose CPNI. By its own admission, the government is not concerned about the disclosure of CPNI within a firm. See CPNI Order at ¶ 55, n.203 ([W]e agree . . . that sharing of CPNI within one integrated firm does not raise significant privacy concerns because customers would not be concerned with having their CPNI disclosed within a firm in order to receive increased competitive offerings.). Yet the government has not explained how or why a carrier would disclose CPNI to outside parties, especially when the government claims CPNI is information that would give one firm a competitive advantage over another. This leaves us unsure exactly who would potentially receive the sensitive information. 41 Similarly, the FCC can theorize that allowing existing carriers to market new services with CPNI will impede competition for those services, but it provides no analysis of how or if this might actually occur. Beyond its own speculation, the best the government can offer is that [t]he vigor of US West's protests against the rules . . . indicates that US West also believes that this restriction will be effective in promoting Congress's competitive interest. Appellees Br. at 30. This is simply additional conjecture, and it is inadequate to justify restrictions under the First Amendment. See Edenfield, 507 U.S. at 770-71. 42