United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 37 (2000)

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 803 (2000)

Breyer, J., dissenting

Third, this case concerns only the regulation of commercial actors who broadcast "virtually 100% sexually explicit" material. 30 F. Supp. 2d 702, 707 (Del. 1998). The channels do not broadcast more than trivial amounts of more serious material such as birth control information, artistic images, or the visual equivalents of classical or serious literature. This case therefore does not present the kind of narrow tailoring concerns seen in other cases. See, e. g., Reno, 521 U. S., at 877-879 ("The breadth of the [statutue's] coverage is wholly unprecedented. . . . [It] cover[s] large amounts of nonpornographic material with serious educational or other value"); Butler, supra, at 381-384 (invalidating ban on books " 'tending to the corruption of the morals of youth' ").

With this background in mind, the reader will better understand my basic disagreement with each of the Court's two conclusions.

II

The majority first concludes that the Government failed to prove the seriousness of the problem—receipt of adult channels by children whose parents did not request their broadcast. Ante, at 819-822. This claim is flat-out wrong. For one thing, the parties concede that basic RF scrambling does not scramble the audio portion of the program. 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 707. For another, Playboy itself conducted a survey of cable operators who were asked: "Is your system in full compliance with Section 505 (no discernible audio or video bleed)?" To this question, 75% of cable operators answered "no." See Def. Exh. 254, 2 Record 2. Further, the Govern-ment's expert took the number of homes subscribing to Playboy or Spice, multiplied by the fraction of cable households with children and the average number of children per household, and found 29 million children are potentially exposed to audio and video bleed from adult programming. Def. Exh. 82, 10 Record 11-12. Even discounting by 25% for systems that might be considered in full compliance, this left 22

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