594
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
a nationwide audience will be judged by the standards of the community most likely to be offended by the message." Reno, 521 U. S., at 877-878. If material might be considered harmful to minors in any community in the United States, then the material is covered by COPA, at least when viewed in that place. This observation was the linchpin of the Court of Appeals' analysis, and we must now consider whether it alone suffices to support the holding below.
The quoted sentence from Reno was not casual dicta; rather, it was one rationale for the holding of the case. In Reno, the Court found "[t]he breadth of [COPA's predecessor] . . . wholly unprecedented," id., at 877, in part because of variation in community standards. The Court also relied on that variation to assess the strength of the Government's interest, which it found "not equally strong throughout the coverage of this broad statute." Id., at 878. The Court illustrated the point with an example: A parent who e-mailed birth control information to his 17-year-old child at college might violate the Act, "even though neither he, his child, nor anyone in their home community found the material 'indecent' or 'patently offensive,' if the college town's community thought otherwise." Ibid. Variation in community standards rendered the statute broader than the scope of the Government's own expressed compelling interest.
It is true, as Justice Thomas points out, ante, at 580-583, that requiring a speaker addressing a national audience to meet varying community standards does not always violate the First Amendment. See Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87, 106 (1974) (obscene mailings); Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115, 125-126 (1989) (ob-scene phone messages). These cases, however, are of limited utility in analyzing the one before us, because each mode of expression has its own unique characteristics, and each "must be assessed for First Amendment purposes by standards suited to it." Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Con-
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