760 DENVER AREA ED. TELECOMMUNICATIONS
CONSORTIUM, INC. v. FCC
Opinion of Breyer, J.
In other cases, where, as here, the record before Congress or before an agency provides no convincing explanation, this Court has not been willing to stretch the limits of the plausible, to create hypothetical nonobvious explanations in order to justify laws that impose significant restrictions upon speech. See, e. g., Sable, supra, at 130 ("[T]he congressional record presented to us contains no evidence as to how effective or ineffective the FCC's most recent regulations were or might prove to be"); Simon & Schuster, 502 U. S., at 120; Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 585-586 (1983); Arkansas Writers' Project, 481 U. S., at 231-232.
Consequently, we cannot find that the "segregate and block" restrictions on speech are a narrowly, or reasonably, tailored effort to protect children. Rather, they are overly restrictive, "sacrific[ing]" important First Amendment interests for too "speculative a gain." Columbia Broadcasting, 412 U. S., at 127; see League of Women Voters, 468 U. S., at 397. For that reason they are not consistent with the First Amendment.
IV
The statute's third provision, as implemented by FCC regulation, is similar to its first provision, in that it too permits a cable operator to prevent transmission of "patently offensive" programming, in this case on public access channels. 1992 Act, § 10(c); 47 CFR § 76.702 (1995). But there are four important differences.
The first is the historical background. As Justice Kennedy points out, see post, at 788-790, cable operators have traditionally agreed to reserve channel capacity for public, governmental, and educational channels as part of the consideration they give municipalities that award them cable franchises. See H. R. Rep. No. 98-934, at 30. In the terms preferred by Justice Thomas, see post, at 827-828, the requirement to reserve capacity for public access channels is similar to the reservation of a public easement, or a dedica-
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