Cite as: 529 U. S. 277 (2000)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
who knowingly and willfully destroy or mutilate them." 391 U. S., at 378-380. There was no study documenting instances of draft card mutilation or the actual effect of such mutilation on the Government's asserted efficiency interests. But the Court permitted Congress to take official notice, as it were, that draft card destruction would jeopardize the system. The fact that this sort of leeway is appropriate in a case involving conduct says nothing whatsoever about its appropriateness in a case involving actual regulation of First Amendment expression. As we have said, so long as the regulation is unrelated to the suppression of expression, "[t]he government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word." Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S., at 406. See, e. g., United States v. O'Brien, supra, at 377; United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675, 689 (1985) (finding sufficient the Government's assertion that those who had previously been barred from entering the military installation pose a threat to the security of that installation); Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S., at 299 (finding sufficient the Government's assertion that camping overnight in the park poses a threat to park property).
Justice Souter, however, would require Erie to develop a specific evidentiary record supporting its ordinance. Post, at 317 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). Justice Souter agrees that Erie's interest in combating the negative secondary effects associated with nude dancing establishments is a legitimate government interest unrelated to the suppression of expression, and he agrees that the ordinance should therefore be evaluated under O'Brien. O'Brien, of course, required no evidentiary showing at all that the threatened harm was real. But that case is different, Justice Souter contends, because in O'Brien "there could be no doubt" that a regulation prohibiting the destruction of draft cards would alleviate the harmful secondary ef-
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