Cite as: 521 U. S. 844 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
to conform it to constitutional requirements." American Booksellers, 484 U. S., at 397.50
XI
In this Court, though not in the District Court, the Government asserts that—in addition to its interest in protecting children—its "[e]qually significant" interest in fostering the growth of the Internet provides an independent basis for upholding the constitutionality of the CDA. Brief for Appellants 19. The Government apparently assumes that the unregulated availability of "indecent" and "patently offensive" material on the Internet is driving countless citizens away from the medium because of the risk of exposing themselves or their children to harmful material.
We find this argument singularly unpersuasive. The dramatic expansion of this new marketplace of ideas contradicts the factual basis of this contention. The record demonstrates that the growth of the Internet has been and continues to be phenomenal. As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
separation-of-powers concerns, we have held that a severability clause is "an aid merely; not an inexorable command." Dorchy v. Kansas, 264 U. S. 286, 290 (1924).
50 See also Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103, 121 (1990) (judicial rewriting of statutes would derogate Congress' "incentive to draft a narrowly tailored law in the first place").
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