Cite as: 518 U. S. 727 (1996)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
has the redeeming virtue of attempting to avoid the chilling of protected expression," an underbreadth challenge "serves no desirable function").
In arguing that Congress could not impose a blocking requirement without also imposing that requirement on public access and nonaccess channels, petitioners fail to allege, much less argue, that doing so would further Congress' compelling interest. While it is true that indecent programming appears on nonaccess channels, that programming appears almost exclusively on "per-program or per channel services that subscribers must specifically request in advance, in the same manner as under the blocking approach mandated by section 10(b)." First Report and Order, 8 FCC Rcd, at 1001, n. 20.20 In contrast to these premium services, leased access channels are part of the basic cable package, and the segregation and blocking scheme Congress imposed does nothing more than convert sexually oriented leased access programming into a free "premium service." 21
Similarly, Congress' failure to impose segregation and blocking requirements on public access channels may have been based on its judgment that those channels presented a less severe problem of unintended indecency—it appears that most of the anecdotal evidence before Congress involved leased access channels. Congress may also have simply de-20 In examining the restrictions imposed by the 1996 Act, the majority is probably correct to doubt that "sex-dedicated channels are all (or mostly) leased channels," ante, at 757, but surely the majority does not doubt that most nonleased sex-dedicated channels are premium channels that must be expressly requested. I thus disagree that the provisions of the 1996 Act address a "highly similar problem." Ante, at 758.
21 Unlike Congress' blocking scheme, and the market norm of requiring viewers to pay a premium for indecent programming, lockboxes place a financial burden on those seeking to avoid indecent programming on leased access channels. See 47 U. S. C. § 544(d)(2) ("[A] cable operator shall provide (by sale or lease) a device by which the subscriber can prohibit viewing of a particular cable service during periods selected by that subscriber").
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