804
Opinion of Scalia, J.
the free flow of traffic on public streets and sidewalks, and in protecting the property rights of all its citizens," the "interest in . . . medical privacy," and the interest in "the psychological [and] physical well-being of the patient held 'captive' by medical circumstance." Ante, at 767, 768. The Court says, ante, at 768, that "these governmental interests [are] quite sufficient to justify an appropriately tailored injunction to protect them." Unless, however, the Court has destroyed even more First Amendment law than I fear, this last statement must be read in conjunction with the Court's earlier acknowledgment that "[u]nder general equity principles, an injunction issues only if there is a showing that the defendant has violated, or imminently will violate, some provision of statutory or common law, and that there is a 'cognizable danger of recurrent violation.' " Ante, at 765, n. 3 (quoting United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 633 (1953)). It is too much to believe, even of today's opinion, that it approves issuance of an injunction against speech "to promote the free flow of traffic" even when there has been found no violation, or threatened violation, of a law relating to that interest.
Assuming then that the "significant interests" the Court mentioned must in fact be significant enough to be protected by state law (a concept that includes a prior court order), which law has been, or is about to be, violated, the question arises: What state law is involved here? The only one even mentioned is the original September 30, 1992, injunction,5 which had been issued (quite rightly, in my judgment) in re-5 Justice Souter points out that "petitioners themselves acknowledge that the governmental interests in protection of public safety and order, of the free flow of traffic, and of property rights are reflected in Florida law. See Brief for Petitioners 17, and n. 7 (citing [various Florida statutes])." Ante, at 777. This is true but quite irrelevant. As the preceding sentence of text shows, we are concerned here not with state laws in general, but with state laws that these respondents had been found to have violated. There is no finding of violation of any of these cited Florida statutes.
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