Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727, 16 (1996)

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742 DENVER AREA ED. TELECOMMUNICATIONS

CONSORTIUM, INC. v. FCC

Opinion of Breyer, J.

analogies (broadcast, common carrier, bookstore) allows us to declare a rigid single standard, good for now and for all future media and purposes. That is not to say that we reject all the more specific formulations of the standard—they appropriately cover the vast majority of cases involving government regulation of speech. Rather, aware as we are of the changes taking place in the law, the technology, and the industrial structure related to telecommunications, see, e. g., Telecommunications Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 56; S. Rep. No. 104-23 (1995); H. R. Rep. No. 104-204 (1995), we believe it unwise and unnecessary definitively to pick one analogy or one specific set of words now. See Columbia Broadcasting, 412 U. S., at 102 ("The problems of regulation are rendered more difficult because the broadcast industry is dynamic in terms of technological change; solutions adequate a decade ago are not necessarily so now, and those acceptable today may well be outmoded 10 years hence"); Pacifica, supra, at 748 ("We have long recognized that each medium of expression presents special First Amendment problems"). We therefore think it premature to answer the broad questions that Justices Kennedy and Thomas raise in their efforts to find a definitive analogy, deciding, for example, the extent to which private property can be designated a public forum, compare post, at 791-793, 794 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part), with post, at 826-829 (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); whether public access channels are a public forum, post, at 791-792 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); whether the Government's viewpoint neutral decision to limit a public forum is subject to the same scrutiny as a selective exclusion from a pre-existing public forum, post, at 799- 803 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); whether exclusion from common carriage must for all purposes be treated like exclusion from a public forum, post, at 797-798 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); and whether the interests of the owners of communica-

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