390
Opinion of Scalia, J.
evidentiary basis . . . , that carefully identify the impact of [the defendants'] unlawful conduct, and that recognize the importance of avoiding the imposition of punishment for constitutionally protected activity." Id., at 933-934.
The Court candidly concedes that the nonexistent "right to be left alone" underlay the District Court's imposition of the cease-and-desist provision. Ante, at 383. It appears not to grasp, however, the decisive import of this concession—which is that the District Court did not think it necessary to exclude all demonstrators from the buffer zone as a means of preventing physical obstruction of clinic entrances or other violations of law (other than the faux violation of intruding upon the speech targets' "private space"). Thus, the Court's statements about what "the District Court was entitled to conclude" are not only speculative (which is fatal enough) but positively contrary to the record of what the District Court did conclude—which was that permitting a few demonstrators within the buffer zone was perfectly acceptable, except when it would infringe the clinic employees' and patrons' right to be free of unwanted speech on public streets. In fact, the District Court expressly stated that if in the future it found that a complete ban on speech within the buffer zone were necessary, it would impose one. 799 F. Supp., at 1436, n. 13.
I do not grasp the relevance of the Court's assertions that
admitting the two counselors into the buffer zone was "an effort to enhance petitioners' speech rights," ante, at 383- 384, "an effort to bend over backwards to 'accommodate' defendants' speech rights," ante, at 381, n. 11, and that "the 'cease and desist' limitation must be assessed in that light," ante, at 384. If our First Amendment jurisprudence has stood for anything, it is that courts have an obligation "to enhance speech rights," and a duty "to bend over backwards to 'accommodate' speech rights." That principle was reaffirmed in Madsen, which requires that a judicial injunction against speech burden "no more speech than necessary to
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