Cite as: 528 U. S. 32 (1999)
Stevens, J., dissenting
that respondent's allegations of direct injury justified the decision of the District Court and the Court of Appeals to pass on the validity of the Amendment.2
To determine whether the Amendment is valid as applied to respondent, it is similarly not necessary to invoke the overbreadth doctrine. That doctrine is only relevant if the challenger needs to rely on the possibility of invalid applications to third parties. In this case, it is the application of the Amendment to respondent itself that is at issue. Nor, in my opinion, is it necessary to do the four-step Central Hudson dance, because I agree with the majority that the Amendment is really a restriction on access to government information rather than a direct restriction on protected speech. For this reason, the majority is surely correct in observing that "California could decide not to give out arrestee information at all without violating the First Amendment." Ante, at 40. Moreover, I think it equally clear that California could release the information on a selective basis to a limited group of users who have a special, and legitimate, need for the information.
A different, and more difficult, question is presented when the State makes information generally available, but denies access to a small disfavored class. In this case, the State is making the information available to scholars, news media, politicians, and others, while denying access to a narrow category of persons solely because they intend to use the information for a constitutionally protected purpose. As
2 The majority's characterization of both the lower court decisions as simple facial invalidations is perplexing. See ante, at 36-37. The District Court explicitly phrased the issue presented as whether "the amendment to Cal. Gov. Code § 6254 [is] an unconstitutional limitation on plaintiff's commercial speech." United Reporting Publishing Corp. v. Lungren, 946 F. Supp. 822, 824 (SD Cal. 1996) (emphasis added). Similarly, the Ninth Circuit concluded its opinion by stating that it need not reach respondent's "overbreadth arguments," United Reporting Publishing Corp. v. California Highway Patrol, 146 F. 3d 1133, 1140, n. 6 (1998), clearly indicating that it was not deciding the case as a facial challenge.
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