758 DENVER AREA ED. TELECOMMUNICATIONS
CONSORTIUM, INC. v. FCC
Opinion of the Court
fair to say that Congress now has tried to deal with most of the problem. At this point, we can take Congress' different, and significantly less restrictive, treatment of a highly similar problem at least as some indication that more restrictive means are not "essential" (or will not prove very helpful). Cf. Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 329 (1988) (existence of a less restrictive statute suggested that a challenged ordinance, aimed at the same problem, was overly restrictive).
The record's description and discussion of a different alternative—the "lockbox"—leads, through a different route, to a similar conclusion. The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 required cable operators to provide
"upon the request of a subscriber, a device by which the subscriber can prohibit viewing of a particular cable service during periods selected by the subscriber." 47 U. S. C. § 544(d)(2).
This device—the "lockbox"—would help protect children by permitting their parents to "lock out" those programs or channels that they did not want their children to see. See FCC 85-179, ¶ 132, 50 Fed. Reg. 18637, 18655 (1985) ("[T]he provision for lockboxes largely disposes of issues involving the Commission's standard for indecency"). The FCC, in upholding the "segregate and block" provisions, said that lockboxes protected children (including, say, children with inattentive parents) less effectively than those provisions. See First Report and Order ¶¶ 14-15, 8 FCC Rcd, at 1000. But it is important to understand why that is so.
The Government sets forth the reasons as follows:
"In the case of lockboxes, parents would have to discover that such devices exist; find out that their cable operators offer them for sale; spend the time and money to buy one; learn how to program the lockbox to block undesired programs; and, finally, exercise sufficient vigilance to ensure that they have, indeed, locked out
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