Court Opinion

ID: 9628908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:33:59.563185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:22.609917
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Enforcement has never been the touchstone of the substantiality of overbreadth inquiry.1 On the contrary, the Supreme Court understands the “danger[]” inherent in the possibility that “the legislature could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders and leave it to the courts to step inside and say who could be rightfully detained, and who should be set at large.” City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 466, 107 S.Ct. 2502, 96 L.Ed.2d *344398 (1987) (quoting United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. (2 Otto) 214, 221, 23 L.Ed. 563 (1875)). A very purpose of the over-breadth doctrine is to invalidate those laws whose statutory language gives such sweep that law enforcement can selectively enforce the law on the basis of the speech’s content.2 See Long Island Vietnam Moratorium Comm. v. Cohn, 437 F.2d 344, 350 (2d Cir.1970) (holding a statute unconstitutional on its face because it “vests local law enforcement officers with too much arbitrary discretion[,] ... permitting] only that expression which local officials will tolerate” as a result of the overbreadth of its statutory language, “rendering] the statute unconstitutional”). To uphold a law based on the statement of an Assistant United States Attorney in this case, Maj. Op. at 339, while at the same time all but conceding that the law is unconstitutional as applied to private couples,3 Maj. Op. at 340-41, and that the law’s record-keeping application to private couples with its criminal penalty falls within the statute’s text, Maj. Op. at 337-39, is to eviscerate the purpose for overbreadth. See Am. Civil Liberties Union v. Reno, 929 F.Supp. 824, 857 (E.D.Pa.1996), aff'd, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S.Ct. 2329, 138 L.Ed.2d 874 (1997) (Sloviter, J.) (rejecting the “troubling]” argument that “the First Amendment should [ ] be interpreted to require [the court] to entrust the protection it affords to the judgment of prosecutors” when “[prosecutors come and go” but “[t]he First Amendment remains to give protection to future generations”). As a matter of pure logic, overbreadth exists to limit the enforcement capabilities of the Attorney General, and therefore overbreadth’s application cannot be limited by an Assistant United States Attorney’s or even an Attorney General’s professed scope of enforcement.
Keep in mind that overbreadth exists in the First Amendment context as an exception to the normal rules of standing, allowing parties before the court to argue on behalf of those not present. Prime Media, Inc. v. City of Brentwood, 485 F.3d 343, 349-50 (6th Cir.2007). However, this exception to standing only amounts to “an exception to the usual prudential standing requirement ‘that a party may assert only a violation of its own rights,’ ” id. (quoting Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S. 383, 392-93, 108 S.Ct. 636, 98 L.Ed.2d 782 (1988)), not an exception to the constitutional standing requirements prescribed by Article III § 2, id. (citing Am. Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S. at 392-93, 108 S.Ct. 636). No one challenges Connection’s prudential or constitutional standing to challenge § 2257 in its entirety. Cf. Prime Media, Inc., 485 F.3d at 350 (requiring the party before the court to have an injury in fact with respect to all of the challenged provisions of a statute).
Many courts have rejected the argument that lack of enforcement means no injury-in-fact in the context of first-party standing. “[0]nly when litigants seek pre-en-forcement review of antiquated laws of purely ‘historical curiosity’ ” can the threat *345of prosecution be deemed speculative. Navegar, Inc. v. United States, 103 F.3d 994, 1000 (D.C.Cir.1997) (quoting Doe v. Duling, 782 F.2d 1202, 1206 (4th Cir.1986)). And yet, even though in Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 101-02, 89 S.Ct. 266, 21 L.Ed.2d 228 (1968), the plaintiff had not been charged, “no record of any prosecutions in Arkansas” under the Arkansas statute existed, and the statute was no more than a “curiosity,” the Court still held that the plaintiffs had standing to bring a First Amendment freedom of religion challenge. Similarly, the Court held that physicians had standing to challenge a state’s abortion statutes even though “the record [did] not disclose that any one of them [had] been prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution.” Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 188, 93 S.Ct. 739, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973). The Sixth Circuit has held that the statutory language itself, where the plaintiff falls within its purview such that the plaintiff “would be subject to application of the statute,” in and of itself supplies “the fear of prosecution [ ] reasonably founded in fact.” Planned Parenthood Ass’n v. City of Cincinnati, 822 F.2d 1390, 1395 (6th Cir.1987). The majority does not contest § 2257’s application to the private couple on the statute’s plain face. Maj. Op. at 337-39.
Connection as the plaintiff provides the uncontroverted injury-in-fact that allows the case to be heard. Connection’s injury-in-fact allows it to stand before the court, but it is the chilling effect on the private couple, the “deficiency which may not affect [the litigant] but only others,” which allows Connection to challenge a law on overbreadth grounds on behalf of the private couple, Morrison v. Bd. of Educ., 521 F.3d 602, 610 (6th Cir.2008) (quoting United Presbyterian Church v. Reagan, 738 F.2d 1375, 1379 (D.C.Cir.1984)). Indeed, third-party standing for overbreadth challenges exists solely out of concern for a challenged law’s chilling effect, so that where there is no chilling of parties not before the court, there is no third-party standing to assert the rights of those parties. See Pitt News v. Fisher, 215 F.3d 354, 364 (3d Cir.2000) (“The Supreme Court has recognized that, in certain cases, the risk that a third party’s free speech may be ‘chilled’ by an overbroad statute or ordinance may warrant the grant of [third-party] standing ....”) (quoting Harris v. Evans, 20 F.3d 1118, 1122 n. 5 (11th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1045, 115 S.Ct. 641, 130 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994)).
While the likelihood of prosecution is the appropriate inquiry under the imminence prong of injury-in-fact, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992), under the proper inquiry of chilling effect, we must not only look at the possibility of enforcement but also its severity, an important point which the majority does not address. Section 2257 imposes criminal sanctions on speech, making a violation of the statute a felony, which magnifies its chilling effect. Cf. Ashcroft v. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656, 667, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159 L.Ed.2d 690 (2004) (where a statute “does not condemn as criminal any category of speech!,] • • • the potential chilling effect is eliminated, or at least much diminished”). Again, the majority does not contest § 2257’s application to the private adult couple on the statute’s plain face. Maj. Op. at 337-39. “[W]here the statute unquestionably attaches sanctions to protected conduct, the likelihood that the statute will deter that conduct is ordinarily sufficiently great to justify an overbreadth attack.” City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 800 n. 19, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984) (citing Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 217, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975)). No doubt “a law imposing criminal penal*346ties on protected speech is a stark example of speech suppression” such that “even minor punishments can chill protected speech.” Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. 234, 244, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002) (citing Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977)). While Wooley dealt with a misdemeanor statute whose violation resulted in the levying of an initial fine of $25 and a jail sentence of 15 days, 430 U.S. at 708, 97 S.Ct. 1428, punishment under § 2257 provides for imprisonment for up to five years and fines, 18 U.S.C. § 2257(i), for violation of its recordkeeping requirement. The gravity of imposing criminal sanctions — and criminal sanctions of this magnitude — on protected speech cannot be overstated.
Moreover, as the majority points out, Congress amended § 2257 in 2006 specifically to expand the statute to include commercial and non-commercial sexually explicit images. Maj. Op. at 337-39. Child pornography, of course, is not only sold but traded and produced and consumed privately, all of which Congress intended to reach with this statute. The specific targeting of non-commercial sexually explicit images then makes uncertain what exactly the Assistant United States Attorney means in this ease when he says that he would not enforce it to cover the hypothetical couple at issue. Maj. Op. at 339. This representation was made for the first time at the en banc oral argument. The majority acknowledges that neither the commercial-non-eommercial line nor the sale-and-trade-private-use line as an attempted clarification offered by the newly promulgated regulations, 73 Fed.Reg. 77,-421, 77,456 (Dec. 18, 2008), finds a basis in the statutory text. Congress’s intent embodied in the statute is contrary — it intends to eradicate all forms of child pornography without regard to whether it is sold, traded, or kept privately in the home. Maj. Op. at 337-39. The statute criminalizes the production of sexually explicit images without the contemporaneous development of records, a completely different matter from how the images are used. Therefore, the regulations do not change what is criminal, they merely enter into the Federal Register the promises made by the Assistant Attorney General regarding their intentions on how they will enforce the law. Congressional motives emphasize that even the attempted clarification offered by the new regulations is suspect because the Attorney General does not explain how it will enforce § 2257 on traded sexually explicit imagery but not that shared for free. Because federal criminal statutes outlast Attorneys General, the reach of the statute’s text, not a promise from law enforcement nor a recently enacted regulation, is the proper focus of our inquiry.
More than simply the imposition of criminal sanctions on protected speech, § 2257 chills even those private couples who might otherwise engage in protected speech and follow its record-keeping requirements. Before producing sexually explicit images in their own homes, private couples must compile records, affix statements, and then subsequently maintain such records for at least five years. Indeed, § 2257 not only requires record-keeping, § 2257(a), but also the making of those records available for periodic inspection by the government, § 2257(c), allowing the government to inspect the location where records are kept at least once every four months, 28 C.F.R. § 75.5, requirements which are especially onerous on those who, as here, wish to engage in private and anonymous speech. “Privacy of communication is an important interest” and “fear of public disclosure of private conversations might well have a chilling effect” on that important interest “even *347without the reality” of surreptitious monitoring. Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 532-33, 121 S.Ct. 1753, 149 L.Ed.2d 787 (2001). Registration requirements have been recognized to have a significant chilling effect on speech because they force those who would speak anonymously “to forgo their right.” Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc. v. Village of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150, 166 n. 14, 122 S.Ct. 2080, 153 L.Ed.2d 205 (2002). The Supreme Court has noted the long and illustrious history of anonymous speech while at the same time pointing out that “identification requirement[s][ ] tend to restrict freedom ... of expression.” Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60, 64, 80 S.Ct. 536, 4 L.Ed.2d 559 (1960). The record-keeping requirement of § 2257 mandates not only record-making before engaging in protected speech between “neighbors,” Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 166, 122 S.Ct. 2080, but also the universality of the record-keeping requirement mandates record-making before engaging in protected speech between friends, lovers, and a husband and wife.
While the records required by § 2257 will not necessarily be publicly available, cf. Maj. Op. at 329-30 (citing Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 166-67, 122 S.Ct. 2080) (no “undue barriers on [those] engaging in anonymous speech” exist because “nothing in the statute makes the required records available to the public”), the statute does provide for government access and does not provide for confidentiality. See Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 486, 81 S.Ct. 247, 5 L.Ed.2d 231 (1960) (suggesting that a statute requiring disclosure without a confidentiality guarantee chills speech). True, the Court in Watchtoiver Bible & Tract Society of New York discussed anonymity with respect to the canvasser vis-a-vis the general public, but not to be ignored is the Court’s point that anonymity with respect to the canvasser vis-a-vis the government is important as well. 536 U.S. at 166-67, 122 S.Ct. 2080. The Court emphasized that abhorrent to the First Amendment is the “very notion” that before engaging in “everyday public discourse[,] a citizen must first inform the government....” Id. at 165-66, 122 S.Ct. 2080. The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York Court delves into a discussion of the anonymous distribution of handbills, id. at 166, 122 S.Ct. 2080, citing cases such as Talley which detail the “important role” anonymous pamphlets have had in circulating “literature critical of the government” and the concomitant punishment meted out by the government of those discovered to have distributed these pamphlets anonymously, Talley, 362 U.S. at 64-65, 80 S.Ct. 536. The historical protection of anonymity was then of the dissident versus the government rather than between the dissident and the public-at-large. See id. Without a doubt then, mandated government disclosure chills both anonymous public and private speech — that is, it chills speech that may be in disfavor with the government — and it does so whenever the government requires disclosure even if only to the government itself.
The Court in Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York also explicitly rejected the argument that the majority appears to make, which reasons that if individuals are willing to expose themselves in sexually explicit imagery, then they can be made to expose other identifying information. See Maj. Op. at 329-31. In Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, petition circulators went door-to-door seeking signatures, and thus they revealed their physical identities. 536 U.S. at 167, 122 S.Ct. 2080. Yet the Court held that “[t]he fact that circulators revealed their physical identities did not foreclose our consideration of the circulators’ interest in main-*348tabling their anonymity.” Id. In coming to this conclusion, the Court again pointed to the historical use of petitioning in drumming up interest in unpopular causes, see Talley, 362 U.S. at 64-65, 80 S.Ct. 536, when it wrote that the registration requirement “may preclude such persons from canvassing for unpopular causes,” Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 167. This again draws attention to the historical protection of anonymity as against the government, not the general public, and therefore an individual may be willing to expose his or her physical presence in sexually explicit imagery or otherwise which acquaintances may recognize, and still retain an interest in not disclosing identifying information to the government. Cf. Maj. Op. at 332-33 (citing Am. Library Ass’n v. Reno (ALA II), 33 F.3d 78, 91 (D.C.Cir.1994)) (making the inapposite comparison between identification requirements in the tax context and identification requirements in the First Amendment context where ALA II dealt with an as-applied challenge by trade organizations and corporations producing commercial sexually explicit imagery).
In an effort to rebut this argument, the majority returns to its central point that the government has not yet abused its power under § 2257 to prosecute those who wish to engage in anonymous speech. Maj. Op. at 330-31. But in the Supreme Court’s anonymous pamphleting or canvassing jurisprudence, the Court has not hesitated to strike down laws that hinder those forms of anonymous speech in the absence of incidents of government abuse of dissidents under the particular statute before the Court. Compare Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 166-67, 122 S.Ct. 2080 (invalidating a law on overbreadth grounds because of its restrictions on anonymous speech with no mention of whether the government used the registration requirement of the statute before the court to harass those attempting to engage in speech) with Maj. Op. at 330-31 (arguing that the statute should be upheld for lack of anecdotes that suggest the “improper use of [§ 2257] records by government agents”). Indeed, the majority does not point to any decisions supporting the proposition that we should look to specific instances of governmental abuse of those who wish to speak anonymously with respect to the particular statute before the court or that we should rely on the government when it says, “Trust me.” On the other hand, no one can argue that the Supreme Court’s history of protecting sexually explicit speech is not as long or illustrious as its history of protecting speech critical of the government or other disfavored speech. See McConnell v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 540 U.S. 93, 248, 124 S.Ct. 619, 157 L.Ed.2d 491 (2003) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting the Court’s vigorous defense of virtual child pornography and sexually explicit cable programming while “smil[ing] with favor” upon a law that impinges upon “the right to criticize the government”); United States v. Playboy Entm’t Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 826, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000) (writing that “[t]he history of the law of free expression is one of vindication in cases involving speech that many citizens may find shabby, offensive, or even ugly” — with reference to the sexually explicit speech at issue in the case). Our precedents are consistent: when it comes to injury-in-fact our case law has counseled against trusting in the benevolence of government not to apply a law where it can be applied according to its text by according standing so that those laws can be challenged. And when it comes to anonymous speech our case law has counseled against trusting in the benevolence of the government not to persecute those who engage in disfavored *349speech by striking down laws which threaten anonymous speech by requiring identification to the government.
In short, the chilling effect on private couples here has already been recognized in the Court’s acknowledgment of criminal sanctions’ chilling effect on speech and identification requirements’ chilling effect on private speech and anonymous speech. The majority argues that this law ought not be invalidated in its entirety because enforcement against private couples may never happen. I would hope that would be so, but the statute by its language gives the government the ability to impose criminal sanctions on private couples for not creating and maintaining records. While the majority suggests that enforcement is a free-floating concern that militates against the substantiality of overbreadth, the majority does not point to any cases supporting its argument, casting doubt on the existence of such a case. The chilling effect analysis subsumes the enforcement concern into the more important issue as to whether private couples will be deterred from speaking, in consideration of not only whether the statute will be enforced, but more importantly, what the statute requires in the first instance of those who wish to speak, whether the statute by its language can be enforced, and if enforced, how severe the sanctions on protected speech are. The majority counsels us that plaintiffs should rely on the fact that prosecution of private couples under this statute “has never occurred” and further that the day “may never come to pass” in which it is enforced. Maj. Op. at 339, 340-41. But where private couples are likely to be chilled from engaging in the speech at issue, a prosecution may never occur for the very reason that private couples have ceased engaging in speech that the statute makes unlawful — a repugnant outcome to the First Amendment and the core reason for the existence of overbreadth challenges. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 612, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973).
Put differently, the chilling effect on pri-, vate couples makes their claims ripe for adjudication. A law’s chilling effect “jus-tifljes] a lessening of the usual prudential requirements for a pre-enforcement challenge to a statute with criminal penalties.” Nat’l Rifle Ass’n v. Magaw, 132 F.3d 272, 284-85 (6th Cir.1997) (citing Sec’y of State v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U.S. 947, 956, 104 S.Ct. 2839, 81 L.Ed.2d 786 (1984)); see also Warshak v. United States, 532 F.3d 521, 533 (6th Cir.2008) (en banc) (citing Anderson v. Spear, 356 F.3d 651, 669 (6th Cir.2004))(“a chilling effect might relax ripeness requirements in a First Amendment case”); Currence v. City of Cincinnati, 28 Fed.Appx. 438, 441 (6th Cir.2002) (citing New Mexicans for Bill Richardson v. Gonzales, 64 F.3d 1495, 1500 (10th Cir.1995)) (“Ripeness analysis is relaxed for First Amendment cases involving a facial challenge to a regulation because courts see a need to prevent the chilling of expressive activity”). “The loss of First Amendment freedoms[,] ... [which] unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,” counsels against the typical ripeness standard. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Reno, 70 F.3d 1045, 1057-58 (9th Cir.1995) (quoting Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976)) (internal quotation marks omitted). No doubt “[t]he courts have repeatedly shown solicitude for First Amendment claims” particularly “with regard to facial challenges to a statute or ordinance.” Peachlum v. City of York, 333 F.3d 429, 435 (3d Cir.2003) (citing Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 612, 93 S.Ct. 2908). When asserting third-party claims in overbreadth challenges, the litigant has not been required to show that the third-party claims are ripe. See United States *350v. Williams, — U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 1842-43, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008); Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 167 n. 14, 122 S.Ct. 2080 (allowing the third-party claim of those who wish to canvass anonymously to factor into substantiality of overbreadth without any notion of whether claims had been or will be brought against them noting only that the statute would require them to surrender their anonymity); see also The Supreme Court 2007 Term—Leading Cases, 122 Habv. L.Rev. 385, 393 n. 80 (2008) (commenting that “[t]he Court routinely points to hypothetical unconstitutional applications without considering their likelihood” using Free Speech Coalition as an example where the statute at issue might subject “films such as American Beauty, Traffic, and Romeo and Juliet ” to “severe punishment” even in spite of “the improbability [] the government [would] ever bring[] such prosecutions”). In Williams, the Court deemed “fanciful hypotheticals” those third-party claims— namely, a person offering non-pornographic photographs of young girls to a pedophile who expects that the pictures will contain child pornography, Hollywood movies that depict underage characters having sex, and persons who turn child pornography over to the police — that “[did] not implicate the statute,” not those where enforcement had not been promised to those third-party claims falling under the statute.4 128 S.Ct. at 1843-44. The majority all but acknowledges that the law is unconstitutional as applied to private couples, Maj. Op. at 340-41, that the law applies to private couples by its text, Maj. Op. at 337-39, and that the law applies criminal penalties to those who violate the law, Maj. Op. at 326, but it decides, couched in the language of substantiality of overbreadth, not to invalidate the law on its face using concerns sounding in ripeness that suggest an exacting standard for ripeness of third-party claims. As noted before, the majority fails to cite to any cases to support this proposition, Maj. Op. at 339-41, which demonstrates a weakness to its argument in the face of our precedents which emphasize the gravity of the chilling of third parties where the statute criminalizes their protected speech by its text as does the statute here.
Substantiality, then, considers the third-party claims of the private couples without any additional notion of enforcement where it has been subsumed in other anal-yses. At the same time, our cases have brought issues such as a statute’s chilling effect and its burden on speech to the forefront. The majority states that the question of substantiality is: When “is it appropriate to invalidate a law in all of its applications when its invalidity can be shown (or assumed) in just some of its applications?” Maj. Op. at 340-41. That could very well be framed as: “When is it appropriate to adjudicate unconstitutional applications of a statute on a case-by-case basis versus invalidating a law in its entirety because of some unconstitutional applications?” The second formulation not only brings to life a central concern that runs throughout overbreadth — namely that unconstitutional applications otherwise may never make it before the court because speakers refrain from speaking, injuring speech and leaving few left to challenge the unconstitutional law — it also *351presents for consideration the burden — as it pertains to the substantiality of over-breadth — on a private couple in challenging the law as-applied. See Virginia v. Hicks, 589 U.S. 113, 119, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003) (acknowledging that overbreadth adjudication reduces the “social costs” of the “considerable burden (and sometimes risk) of vindicating [] rights through case-by-case litigation”). “[T]he opportunity to raise constitutional defenses at a criminal trial is inadequate to protect the underlying constitutional rights” in the face of possible criminal conviction because of the practical burden of “becoming enmeshed in protracted criminal litigation” and the corresponding waste of resources. Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U.S. 82, 118, 91 S.Ct. 674, 27 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971). Nor has the Court overlooked “the opprobrium and stigma” of criminal prosecution and conviction. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. at 872, 117 S.Ct. 2329. Added to the burden on criminal defendants who would challenge the law in this case is the public scrutiny of a case dealing with private sexually explicit speech. Cf Maj. Op. at 329-30. The social costs of case-by-case adjudication here are as great as in any prior Supreme Court decision.5
True, “that a criminal prohibition is involved does not obviate the need for the [substantiality] inquiry or a priori warrant a finding of substantial overbreadth.” New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 773, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982). The majority argues that the application of § 2257 to private couples “has not been shown to involve a materially significant number of people.” Maj. Op. at 340-41. The majority does not dwell on this argument, though, perhaps because our precedents have not required a showing by the litigant that a certain number of people are engaged in a particular activity; instead, we have analogized a third-party’s claim to past cases in which we have or have not held a statute overbroad. See Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., 536 U.S. at 166, 122 S.Ct. 2080 (recognizing “a significant number of persons” in those who seek to canvass anonymously based on “our [prior] cases involving [the] distribution of unsigned handbills”). In other words, when the Supreme Court or our precedents have evaluated whether an “amount of protected speech” is “substantial,” Williams, 128 S.Ct. at 1838, they have analogized to decided cases as to the interests at stake rather than demanding some statistics in accordance with the natural meaning of the word “amount.” At one extreme, the Tenth Circuit has held that “a First Amendment challenge to the facial validity of a statute is a strictly legal question; it does not involve the application of the statute in a specific factual setting.” Kan. Judicial Review v. Stout, 519 F.3d 1107, 1118 (10th Cir.2008) (citing ACORN v. City of Tulsa, 835 F.2d 735, 740 (10th Cir.1987)).
Sexually explicit speech produced by consenting adults kept in the privacy of their own home is “ordinary and harmless speech” not unlike “conversations between neighbors.” Riel v. City of Bradford, 485 F.3d 736, 754 (3d Cir.2007) (citing Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., 536 U.S. at 165-66, 122 S.Ct. 2080); see also United States v. U.S. Dist. Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972) (citing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 358, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967)) (holding that in the Fourth Amendment context, “private speech,” a “cherished privacy of law-abiding citizens” that the Bill *352of Rights was meant to safeguard, is shielded from “unreasonable surveillance”). “The uninhibited exchange of ideas and information among private parties” is an important interest protected by the First Amendment. Bartnicki, 532 U.S. at 532, 121 S.Ct. 1753. In Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969), the Court emphasized the distinction between the “regulation of commercial distribution of obscene material” and the “mere private possession of such material.” 394 U.S. at 563-64, 89 S.Ct. 1243. The Court understood the First Amendment’s protection of speech taking place in “the privacy of [one’s] own home” with respect to other constitutional protections of the home by the Fourteenth Amendment, id. at 564, 89 S.Ct. 1243 (citing Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965)), and the Fourth Amendment, id. (citing Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), overruled by Katz, 389 U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. 507 (1967)), in holding that the First Amendment protected private possession of obscene material in the home. Id. at 566. Regulation and criminalization of the private speech of private couples is similarly repugnant here.
Anonymous speech is also an interest of private couples. The Supreme Court has held that “an author’s decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.” McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 342, 115 S.Ct. 1511, 131 L.Ed.2d 426 (1995). Many rationales for anonymity have been recognized by the Court, including the “fear of economic or official retaliation, [ ] concern about social ostracism, or merely [] a desire to preserve as much of one’s privacy as possible,” all concerns of which apply to private couples here with regard to the content of the speech at issue. Id. at 341-42, 115 S.Ct. 1511. The interest in anonymity extends beyond handbills and political works to those producing literary works as well. Id. For instance, the author behind Shakespeare’s work, id. at 341 n. 4, 115 S.Ct. 1511 (pointing out the possibility that Shakespeare was a pseudonym for the Earl of Oxford), has an interest in anonymity as someone depicting “teenage lovers” with the suggestion that they “consummated their relationship,” Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. at 247, 122 S.Ct. 1389. The majority draws an artificial distinction here based on whether “an historically significant mode of communication” is affected, Maj. Op. at 333, rather than looking to whether the group at issue has an interest in speaking anonymously according to a historically significant rationale for anonymous speech as the Court has done, see Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 166-67, 122 S.Ct. 2080; McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 341-43, 115 S.Ct. 1511; cf. Peterson v. Nat’l Telecomm. and Info. Admin., 478 F.3d 626, 632 (4th Cir.2007) (dealing with a non-“historically significant mode of communication,” Maj. Op. at 333, namely a website, but still considering whether the litigant has an interest in anonymous speech by looking to “the concerns underlying the right to anonymous speech,” before concluding that he did not because he did not rely on anonymity in his speech). “[T]he First Amendment protects anonymity where it serves as a catalyst for speech.” Peterson, 478 F.3d at 632. The private adult couples here maintain an interest in anonymity with regard to the intensely personal and private nature of consensual sexually explicit imagery, the disfavored status of sexually explicit imagery, and the potential for social ostracism and official retaliation that *353comes from identification in sexually explicit imagery.6
As the majority points out, commercial producers have no interest in anonymous sexually explicit speech. Maj. Op. at 330-31, 332-33 (citing ALA II, 33 F.3d at 91). The Second Circuit has recognized this distinction as well, which mirrors the majority’s analogy between record-keeping for private couples and record-keeping with regard to commercial producers, namely that between those website visitors engaging in commercial activity on the internet who have “no clear expectation of or interest in remaining anonymous” such that their identification passes First Amendment scrutiny, SPGGC, LLC v. Blumenthal, 505 F.3d 183, 195 (2d Cir.2007), whereas identification requirements to enter sexually explicit websites force any non-commercial visitor to “forgo the anonymity otherwise available on the internet,” Am. Booksellers Found. v. Dean, 342 F.3d 96, 99 (2d Cir.2003), in violation of their interest in anonymity, SPGGC, LLC, 505 F.3d at 195. Our private couples here are not unlike the noncommercial website visitor. The latter surfs sexually explicit websites with an expectation of privacy generally available on the internet, Am. Booksellers Found., 342 F.3d at 99, just as the former produces sexually explicit imagery with an expectation of privacy generally available in private communications. Where the majority points out that the rise of “internet-based chat rooms and the like explain” at least part of the decline of Connection’s subscriber base, Maj. Op. at 330-31, the majority implicitly acknowledges that anonymity is important to private couples and swingers because the internet provides an anonymous alternative to speech covered by § 2257’s record keeping requirements.
In addition, some amount of sexually explicit imagery produced by private couples will overlap with other constitutionally protected speech, including obscenity kept in the privacy of one’s home, Stanley, 394 U.S. at 564-68, 89 S.Ct. 1243, and nonob-scene sexually explicit imagery of consenting adults generally, see Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. at 250-51, 122 S.Ct. 1389. Taking the above together with private speech and anonymous speech, the amount of protected speech impacted is extensive indeed.
Similarly, the majority uses pure reasoning to calculate the “amount” of speech falling within the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep. See Maj. Op. at 336-38. In surmising that the amount of speech involving Connection and its subscribers is small, the majority reasons that swingers represent a minority of those in the pornography industry but does not make an attempt to quantify this number. Id. The evidence with regard to the amount of sexually explicit imagery consisting of young-looking models, which the majority argues falls within the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep, is flawed as well. First, it is worth pointing out that their evidence deals only with commercial sexually explicit imagery. Second, the majority concludes that the amount of sexually explicit imagery consisting of young-looking models is vast by combining the generally accepted notion that the commercial pornography industry is vast with the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography and *354a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on § 2257 which both assert that most commercial pornography depicts young-looking persons. This is a lot of weight to put on evidence from the 1980s (1986 and 1988, respectively), particularly when the rise of distributed means of production, e.g., digital cameras and camcorders, explains why an overbreadth challenge presenting the rights of private couples to produce sexually explicit imagery has far more basis today than it did in the 1980s. Twenty years have passed since these reports, and meanwhile digital video and still cameras have become ubiquitous, where before the capacity to capture sexually explicit images may have resided in the hands of far fewer people. This means equally a rise in production of non-commercial sexually explicit imagery and commercial pornography involving a broader range of interests.7 A few comments from 20 years ago have little relevance today, and thus, the Government has not met its burden here. See Playboy Entm’t Group, Inc., 529 U.S. at 816-17, 120 S.Ct. 1878 (“When the Government restricts speech, the Government bears the burden of proving the constitutionality of its actions.”).
Regardless, commercial pornography does not fall within the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep. The majority suggests that all commercial pornography falls within the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep because commercial pornography is dominated by young-looking models which fall within the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep. Maj. Op. at 336-37. However, the majority does not have much confidence in this suggestion, as it only can say that commercial pornography “is the setting in which it is easiest to accept the constitutionality of these proof-of-age requirements.” Maj. Op. at 337-38. But Broad-rick and our overbreadth case law instruct courts to look at the legitimate sweep of the statute which is “plain,” 413 U.S. at 615, 93 S.Ct. 2908, not that which is easiest to accept.8 The majority all but concedes that the application of § 2257 is “problematic” with regard to sexually explicit images in which the actors and actresses are clearly middle-aged individuals. Maj. Op. at 337-38. That acknowledgment in itself shows that the legitimacy of § 2257 as applied to commercial pornography is not plain.9
Nor is the constitutionality of the statute as applied to young-looking models in commercial pornography plain. Free Speech Coalition held that virtual child pornography could not be regulated10 for *355the purpose of regulating child pornography, simply because virtual child pornography depicted those who “appear[ed] to be” children. 535 U.S. at 254-55, 122 S.Ct. 1389. Section 2257 requires records of young-looking models — otherwise known as those models who appear to be children — in an effort to regulate actual child pornography, an analogous situation to that in Free Speech Coalition. See id. No children are abused in the creation of commercial pornography with young-looking models. Id. at 236. The majority distinguishes our case from that in Free Speech Coalition by referring to the level of scrutiny applied — that is, intermediate scrutiny here versus strict scrutiny in Free Speech Coalition, Maj. Op. at 333 — but that does not change the Court’s concern with “[pjrotected speech ... becoming] unprotected merely because it resembles” unprotected speech, Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. at 255, 122 S.Ct. 1389. Rather, it only addresses whether that concern when combined with the level of scrutiny suffices to invalidate a law, or whether the concern simply militates in favor of invalidating it. Nevertheless, one need not agree that the law ought to be invalidated on the basis of Free Speech Coalition; it is enough to agree that the reasoning of Free Speech Coalition calls into question whether the application of § 2257 to young-looking models in commercial sexually explicit imagery is plainly legitimate.11
To decide the constitutionality of § 2257 as applied to young-looking models in commercial sexually explicit imagery where the Supreme Court has not ruled is to “formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts,” which the majority counsels against. Maj. Op. at 336 (quoting Wash. State Grange v. Wash. State Republican Party, — U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 1184, 1191, 170 L.Ed.2d 151 (2008)). The majority seems today to try to craft a law that applies to commercial sexually explicit imagery, Maj. Op. at 336-38, which at the same time does not apply to private couples, Maj. Op. at 34CM11. In so doing, the majority attempts to both rule on overbreadth at the same time as it formulates a new constitutional rule with regard to the legality of a universal record-keeping requirement in the commercial production of sexually explicit imagery. Perhaps the majority is attempting to decide constitutional and unconstitutional applications of the statute when it asserts that “[a] court may enjoin the unconstitutional applications of the law while preserving the other valid applications of the law,” it need not invalidate a entire statute when it cannot “sever an offending portion of the text from the rest of the statute,” Maj. Op. at 341-42. The *356authorities cited by the majority do support this proposition, but whether a law can be crafted prospectively in this way depends on “how easily we can articulate the remedy.” Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of N. New England, 546 U.S. 320, 329, 126 S.Ct. 961, 163 L.Ed.2d 812 (2006). On the other hand, “making distinctions in a murky constitutional context ... may call for a far more serious invasion of the legislative domain than we ought undertake.” Id. at 329-330, 126 S.Ct. 961 (citing United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U.S. 454, 479 n. 26, 115 S.Ct. 1003, 130 L.Ed.2d 964 (1995)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has thus continued to emphasize refraining from prospectively setting out a law’s constitutional and unconstitutional applications for claims, by the litigant representing himself or third parties, where it is not a “relatively simple matter.” Treasury Employees, 513 U.S. at 479 n. 26, 115 S.Ct. 1003 (citing United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 180, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983)). Therefore, the plainly legitimate sweep of the statute is in its coverage of child pornography. See Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 109-15, 110 S.Ct. 1691, 109 L.Ed.2d 98 (1990).
By the time I reach the issue of substan-tiality, most of the work has been completed. With my differing approach to the requirements for substantiality, my analysis will proceed much differently from the majority’s. The protected speech impacted is that of private couples producing sexually explicit imagery. The plainly legitimate sweep of the statute is in its coverage of producers of child pornography. The chilling effect of the statute to private couples is severe in recognition of the statute’s application by its text to private couples, the statute’s criminal penalties, its invasion of privacy, and its identification requirements. The burden on case-by-case resolution to this problem is also severe because of the possibility of imprisonment and other criminal sanctions, the expense of resources in mounting a defense, and the social opprobrium in the association with recorded sexually explicit activity. As argued above, the chilling effect is such that case-by-case resolution may never come to pass because speakers refrain from speaking.
The overbreadth analysis in Free Speech Coalition is instructive because it deals with a statute whose plainly legitimate sweep amounted to child pornography and obscenity. 535 U.S. at 256, 122 S.Ct. 1389. But the statute covered the depiction of sexually explicit activity between youths under the legal age which did not amount to obscenity and did not use actual children. Id. at 246-47, 122 S.Ct. 1389. The Court in Free Speech Coalition held that the statute was substantially overbroad with emphasis on the fact that enforcement of the statute against non-obscene sexually explicit imagery depicting sexually explicit activity between youths, even though the depicted persons were either adults or simulated, took the statute far astray from its purpose in preventing the abuse of children, 535 U.S. at 245, 122 S.Ct. 1389, to the point where it intruded on speech we take for granted such as Hollywood movies and Shakespeare, even in spite of the unlikelihood of prosecution in those circumstances, id. at 247-48, 122 S.Ct. 1389. The majority here similarly acknowledges that the application of § 2257 to private couples “is far removed from the underlying purposes of the Act,” Maj. Op. at 339-40, suggesting the sub-stantiality of overbreadth. In other words, the “[pjrotected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter” when the underlying purpose of the statute is not being served; “[t]he Constitution requires the reverse.” Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. at 255, 122 *357S.Ct. 1389. The statute at issue in Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York covered both those going door-to-door to carry out commercial transactions or solicit funds and those making the rounds for religious, political, or other advocacy purposes. 536 U.S. at 168, 122 S.Ct. 2080. Because the government’s rationale in enacting the statute was to prevent crime and fraud, “the ordinance significantly restricted a substantial quantity of speech unrelated to the [government’s] interest in eliminating fraud and unwanted annoyance,” and so the Court invalidated the law on its face for overbreadth. Id. at 160, 122 S.Ct. 2080 (citing Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc. v. Village of Stratton, 240 F.3d 553, 572 (6th Cir.2001) (Gilman, J., dissenting), rev’d by 536 U.S. 150, 122 S.Ct. 2080, 153 L.Ed.2d 205 (2002)). Similarly, the over-inclusive reach of the statute here sweeps in all sexually explicit images, whether created for commercial purposes or non-commercial purposes, whether distributed widely or kept in the privacy of one’s own home, or whether the individuals depicted are young-looking or clearly over the age of majority. The government seeks to prevent child pornography, an important if not paramount governmental interest, but cannot do so by burdening speech of such importance and sweep, far removed from the purposes of the statute. Indeed, over-breadth exists to cure statutory imprecision when the legislature has drafted a statute which by its text reaches expressive activity far afield from its valid exercise of its power. The majority argues that the Court in Free Speech Coalition applied the “most skeptical level of review” because the statute “did not hew closely enough to any of the government’s asserted interests in enacting the law,” both seemingly conflating overbreadth and as-applied analysis, at the same time as it ignores its own suggestion that the “most skeptical level of review” ought to apply to § 2257 as part of an overbreadth analysis for departing drastically from the government’s asserted interests in enacting the law. See Maj. Op. at 333.
Otherwise, the Supreme Court has not provided much guidance on the factors that make up the substantiality inquiry. The majority clings to a statute that it admits is flawed, all but conceding that the statute is fatally flawed if applied, holding on to the representation that there will be no prosecutions in the feared circumstances. The uncontroverted illegality of the statute as a matter of law leads the majority to search out defects in the litigants’ factual showings, namely those facts that exist out in the world, in an effort to defeat their proffered arguments, not the merits of their case. The Supreme Court has never done this. Williams is instructive, as there, the Court evaded the third-party arguments by construing the statute differently from the Eleventh Circuit so that the statute did not apply to the categories of speech that the Court of Appeals placed into the protected-speech-impacted category used to invalidate the statute on overbreadth grounds. 128 S.Ct. at 1842-44. Generally, the Court has reinterpreted laws to avoid application to protected speech so as to tilt the overbreadth balance against invalidation in those circumstances. See also Hicks, 539 U.S. 113 at 122, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (interpreting “legitimate business or social purpose,” contrary to the Virginia Supreme Court, to include leafleting and demonstrating, removing that protected speech from the overbreadth determination). But here, the majority agrees that the statute would apply to private couples by its text and that there is no way around this conclusion based on the statute Congress has drafted. Moreover, the interests of private couples accords with those interests in speech the Supreme Court has *358historically recognized as substantial and worthy of protection under the First Amendment. The majority’s only answer is that no enforcement has been promised, which is contrary to the very notion of the rule of law when the statute applies to private couples by its text. And particularly in the First Amendment context, “[w]here regulations of the liberty of free discussion are concerned, there are special reasons for observing the rule that it is the statute ... which prescribes the limits of permissible conduct and warns against transgression.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 98, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940) (citing Schneider v. New Jersey, 308 U.S. 147, 155, 60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155 (1939)).
No court has looked to the likelihood of enforcement as the majority does in determining substantiality. Maj. Op. at 339-41. Indeed, the majority cites no cases for the proposition that the lack of past enforcement or the promise of no future enforcement militates against finding a statute overbroad. Cf. id. And unlike the hypothetical in Williams, the statute indisputably applies to private couples by its text. An application of the statute under those circumstances is clearly unconstitutional. Moreover, it attaches severe criminal sanctions and requires identification for the protected speech, such that, together, there is a likelihood of chilling the protected speech. The costs of case-by-case adjudication of the unconstitutional applications of the statute are high in consideration of the possibility of a lengthy imprisonment (up to five years), lifelong status as a felon, and social opprobrium for association with producing sexually explicit imagery. Finally, to reach speech excluded from protection under the First Amendment, the statute inhibits protected speech, under circumstances far flung from the underlying purpose of the statute. For those reasons, I would hold the statute unconstitutionally overbroad.
In citing to Faustin v. City & County of Denver, 423 F.3d 1192 (10th Cir.2005) and West v. Derby Unified Sch. Dist. No. 260, 206 F.3d 1358 (10th Cir.2000), Maj. Op. at 341, the majority misses the point in an illustrative way. Faustin and West both dealt with local (city and school) policies. Faustin, 423 F.3d at 1195; West, 206 F.3d at 1361. The court in Faustin was even dealing with an unwritten policy, 423 F.3d at 1195, so of course the court had to inquire as to enforcement merely to understand the boundaries of the unwritten policy. The court in West dealt with a school district’s “Racial Harassment and Intimidation” policy. 206 F.3d at 1361. To understate the fact, neither has the force of law of a federal criminal statute. The relevance of that fact is embodied in the severity of punishment at issue — 5 years imprisonment and fines versus no punitive aspect to the policy at all, Faustin, 423 F.3d at 1196-98, and suspension from school, West, 206 F.3d at 1361 — and the importance of a law’s text in understanding its scope — a federal statute can be enforced everywhere according to its text while a local policy does not develop its dimensions until it is enforced. In other words, to even understand what a school district’s policy means, a court must look to how it was enforced in the past. The court in West did exactly that when it “consider[ed][a] limiting construction which the school district ha[d] given the policy” by looking to whether the school had ever “disciplined a student for possessing in textbooks and other school materials with legitimate educational purposes depictions of the Confederate flag or other racially divisive symbols.” 206 F.3d at 1368. The concept that ties all of the considerations together — once again, that the majority ignores — is that the force of law of a federal criminal statute means *359that a chilling effect exists where a statute by its text applies to a category of protected speech.
The majority’s arguments regarding the “thin record” in this case, Maj. Op. at 338-39, are similarly unpersuasive because the majority never argues that substantiality does not involve legal analysis analogizing to other interests past courts have found to be substantial rather than some kind of quantitative analysis counting the number of people affected. This argument might be countered with the notion that the majority only requires a more developed record as part of the exercise of its judgment with respect to substantiality, and it does not go so far as to demand hard numbers. See Maj. Op. at 341. However, this statement merely obscures the fact that a heavy record as to speech has never been required in overbreadth challenges on behalf of third-parties. Put differently, the majority imposes a requirement of the plaintiffs here that has teeth in punting their claim but no bite in the subsequent legal analysis that we must perform. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that facial challenges “invite judgments on fact-poor records” which is why overbreadth is allowed in limited circumstances such as the free speech arena because of the potential chilling effect of the statute at hand. Sabri v. United States, 541 U.S. 600, 609, 124 S.Ct. 1941, 158 L.Ed.2d 891 (2004).
Indeed, the majority writes as if the thin record as to those engaging in this kind of speech layers abstraction on top of the abstraction that comes with lack of enforcement. Maj. Op. at 339. On the contrary, the thin record and the lack of enforcement are merely two aspects of the same concept — a concept that is endemic to and in fact the touchstone of over-breadth challenges. That concept is the chilling effect. The consideration of the chilling effect in free speech cases allows for weakened third-party standing and ripeness requirements in overbreadth challenges that necessitate a more abstract debate. The majority never argues that third-party claims are not properly before us whether because Connection and the Does have no standing or because the third-party claims are not ripe. Nor does the majority explain why lack of enforcement would not disqualify a first-party claim by private couples while at the same time the majority will not consider the third-party claims of the private couples before it. The third-party claims of the private couples are before us. We not only are deciding Connection’s claims, we are deciding the claims of private couples who are before us. The doctrines of standing and ripeness function as gatekeepers, blocking the kinds of claims that the majority says are before us today. In letting Connection and the Does through the gate, likely because the majority cannot rebut the lesser requirement for third-party standing and ripeness in over-breadth, we turn to the constitutionality of the statute because our decision binds subsequent courts and litigants as the majority decision stands for the proposition that § 2257 is not overbroad. If the majority had argued that Connection and the Does did not have third-party standing to make an overbreadth challenge on behalf of private couples, then the majority’s holding would not serve as binding precedent to a subsequent litigant bringing a third-party overbreadth challenge who had a more-developed record. The difference is between deciding the case on justiciability grounds and substantive overbreadth grounds. The majority holds itself out as agnostic as to whether the statute is actually overbroad. Yet it decides the case on substantive grounds which declare that the statute is not overbroad. With this in *360mind, concern for the underdevelopment of the record falls away.
If lack of enforcement is insufficient per se to doom an overbreadth challenge as the majority acknowledges, Maj. Op. at 341, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the statute is overbroad because the majority lacks other considerations of any force. Id. The majority acknowledges the costs to case-by-ease adjudication, Maj. Op. at 340-41, and rebuts that with discussion of possible “harmful effects” to invalidating a statute with some constitutional applications, id. Our cases have not required us to do any kind of statistical or economic analysis when it comes to either of these requirements. The majority, without attempting any comparisons to cases in which overbreadth has been found substantial or the costs of case-by-case adjudication have outweighed the costs of facial invalidation, appears to reject the value of the speech at issue. Our cases describe the overbreadth that counts as substantial, so that we need to compare our case to such prior cases to understand overbreadth in the case before us. As an example, in Free Speech Coalition, the Court invalidated a law which aided law enforcement in the prosecution of child pornography and surely that came at great cost because of the tremendous harms of child pornography and the difficulties in its prosecution. 535 U.S. at 254-55, 122 S.Ct. 1389. Nevertheless, the costs of the suppression of lawful speech (in Free Speech Coalition, virtual child pornography, 535 U.S. at 254, 122 S.Ct. 1389) and its chilling effect outweighed the considerable harm in a weakened ability for the government to prosecute child pornography. The majority opinion fails to square the balancing required of it with the prescribed balance of Free Speech Coalition.
As for the remedy, I agree with the majority that, after overbreadth has been identified, “[a] court may enjoin the unconstitutional applications of the law while preserving the other valid applications of the law,” Maj. Op. at 341^2, but I disagree that the possibility to exercise that technique exists here. The cases make clear that “the touchstone for any decision about remedy is legislative intent.” Ayotte, 546 U.S. at 330, 126 S.Ct. 961. The majority itself admits that the legislature amended § 2257 in 2006 to “cover[ ] commercial and non-commercial pornography.” Maj. Op. at 337-38; see also Connection Distributing Co. v. Keisler (Connection III), 505 F.3d 545, 552-54, 565 (6th Cir.2007). Moreover, the expressed point of the law is to deal with all sexually explicit images of children, Maj. Op. at 324-25, and that makes no distinction between child pornography sold, traded, or created and kept in the privacy of one’s own home and other legal adult sexually explicit imagery produced and kept in the privacy of one’s own home. Congress would intend § 2257 to proscribe all of the aforementioned forms of sexually explicit images of children but how it would do so while at the same time not reaching the private production of sexually explicit images of adults is unclear under the existing form of the law when, by its terms, it is meant to reach private, non-commercial sexually explicit images. The majority does not propose a principled way to enjoin unconstitutional applications of the law while staying faithful to the legislature’s intent. I do not doubt that it may be possible. I merely understand that alleviating the First Amendment concerns of the statute while at the same time maintaining the statute’s legitimate applications requires a freer hand and more creativity than we have as judges.
In addition, I would hold that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to Connection and its advertisers for the simple, uncontroverted fact that the vast majority *361of swingers, Connection subscribers, and Connection advertisers are over the age of 21 if not middle-aged, and at the same time, § 2257 requires universal age-verification and recordkeeping such that they must create at the time of production and maintain records for those of all ages. None of the majority’s arguments about the subjectivity of determining the ages of young-looking adults or the submission of body parts in lieu of a full-body photo with a face-shot changes that. Cf. Maj. Op. at 331-33. It is up to the legislature to consider those factors in drawing a sufficiently narrowly-tailored statute. Possibilities have been suggested: e.g., a statute requiring full-body shots that can be cropped if the advertiser only desires to show a body part, cf. id., and a statute requiring identification of those under the age of 26, Connection III, 505 F.3d at 571 (Moore, J., concurring).12 The statute as it is drawn burdens substantially more protected speech — that is, the speech of the vast majority of swingers, Connection subscribers, and Connection advertisers who are over the age of 21, if not middle-aged— than is necessary to advance the legislature’s compelling interest of eliminating child pornography. And accordingly, I would hold the statute unconstitutional as applied to Connection and its advertisers as well.
For the forgoing reasons, I would reverse the grant of summary judgment to the government.

. I focus on the overbreadth challenge because the added plaintiffs, the Does, are those who refrained from speaking, Maj. Op. at 327-28, and the full extent of the case presented to us is not only Connection's claim but the claims of the Does and other private couples producing and keeping sexually explicit images in their own homes. Section 2257 criminalizes the private production of sexually explicit images if a contemporaneous record is not made, which is a prerequisite to the Does’ claims that they cannot publish the images they have created in Connection. The Does' claims implicate two forms of speech here: creation of sexually explicit images and their publication.

. The Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit images of adults constitute speech and are protected under the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee. See Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115, 119, 93 S.Ct. 2680, 37 L.Ed.2d 492 (1973).

. “Private couples” are those adults creating and keeping sexually explicit images in their own homes. See Maj. Op. at 337-38. The statute makes it a crime even for private couples to produce sexually explicit images without first compiling records, affixing statements, and then subsequently maintaining such records for at least five years with law enforcement being able to enter the home at least once every four months to inspect the records. The punishment under § 2257 provides for imprisonment for up to five years and fines.

. For a hypothetical that did fall under the statute, documentary footage of atrocities committed in foreign countries, the Court took it seriously and moved to how it affected the substantiality balance. Williams, 128 S.Ct. at 1844. Where "the statute might cover”— by its language — the hypothetical, the Court did not ask whether enforcement would be sought. Id.

. This action was initiated only because of the adverse economic effect on Connection’s magazine triggered by the reduction it experienced in adult subscribers’ exchange of legal adult pornography after the enactment of this statute.

. As above, Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York foreclosed the argument that revealing one’s physical identity means that one has no interest in anonymity. 536 U.S. at 167, 122 S.Ct. 2080. For instance, in the trial of Robert Kelly, the success of the Shaggy defense — the bald assertion that "it wasn't me” — suggests that the difficulties in precise physical identification allow for anonymity even when a depicted person appears in an 27-minute sex tape. See Josh Levin, Dispatches From the R. Kelly Trial, Slate, May 21, 2008, http://www.slate.com/id/2191876/ entry/2191877/.

. The record shows that in 2005, www.Adult FriendFinders.com, a site for swingers, had over 13 million personal ads, consisting of personally written text and personally produced sexually explicit images, with 96% to 98% of those ads placed by couples where both individuals were over the age of 21.

. The opinion of Connection’s counsel as to the constitutionality of the statute as applied to young-looking models in commercial sexually explicit imagery is irrelevant to whether said application is actually plainly legitimate according to Supreme Court precedent. Cf. Maj. Op. at 336-38.

. The district court judge in ALA II held § 2257 unconstitutional, and on appeal, one judge dissented from the majority's reversal. ALA II, 33 F.3d at 94-95.

.The Court in Free Speech Coalition expressly rejected the argument that the statute at issue did not suppress or criminalize speech because it gave the defendant an affirmative defense "to avoid conviction for non-possession offenses by showing that the materials were produced using only adults and were not otherwise distributed in a manner conveying the impression that they depicted real children.” 535 U.S. at 255, 122 S.Ct. 1389. Indeed, this covers much (if not all) of the protected speech the majority used to weigh in favor of calling the statute substantially overbroad. The argument that the protected speech here is not criminalized or sup*355pressed by § 2257 then is unavailing because the Court in Free Speech Coalition makes clear that we must look at the burdens put on speech — as there, raising an affirmative defense during a criminal felony prosecution. Private couples here must compile records, affix statements to the images, and then subsequently maintain such records for at least five years with law enforcement being able to enter the home at least once every four months to inspect the records; or in the alternative, private couples must face punishment under § 2257 which includes imprisonment for up to five years and fines.

. Couple this with the developing nature of the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence generally and we must decline to opine that the regulation of young-looking models in commercial sexually explicit imagery is plainly legitimate. See also Williams, 128 S.Ct. at 1841-42 (analyzing the plainly legitimate sweep of the statute by looking to established categorical exceptions to First Amendment protection, namely the lack of protection for ''[ojffers to engage in illegal transactions” and the well-documented distinction between "a proposal to engage in illegal activity and the abstract advocacy of illegality”).

. I make no comment about the constitutionality of those proposals because those cases are not before us. Just how a statute that would meet constitutional muster should be drafted is not obvious.