United States v. American Library Association, Inc., 539 U.S. 194, 3 (2003)

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196

UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSN., INC.

Syllabus

ries software users intend to block are dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering software disabled. Pp. 203-209.

2. CIPA does not impose an unconstitutional condition on libraries that receive E-rate and LSTA subsidies by requiring them, as a condition on that receipt, to surrender their First Amendment right to provide the public with access to constitutionally protected speech. Assuming that appellees may assert an "unconstitutional conditions" claim, that claim would fail on the merits. When the Government appropriates public funds to establish a program, it is entitled to broadly define that program's limits. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 194. As in Rust, the Government here is not denying a benefit to anyone, but is instead simply insisting that public funds be spent for the purpose for which they are authorized: helping public libraries fulfill their traditional role of obtaining material of requisite and appropriate quality for educational and informational purposes. Especially because public libraries have traditionally excluded pornographic material from their other collections, Congress could reasonably impose a parallel limitation on its Internet assistance programs. As the use of filtering software helps to carry out these programs, it is a permissible condition under Rust. Appellees mistakenly contend, in reliance on Legal Services Corporation v. Velazquez, 531 U. S. 533, 542-543, that CIPA's filtering conditions distort the usual functioning of public libraries. In contrast to the lawyers who furnished legal aid to the indigent under the program at issue in Velazquez, public libraries have no role that pits them against the Government, and there is no assumption, as there was in that case, that they must be free of any conditions that their benefactors might attach to the use of donated funds. Pp. 210-214.

Justice Kennedy concluded that if, as the Government represents, a librarian will unblock filtered material or disable the Internet software filter without significant delay on an adult user's request, there is little to this case. There are substantial Government interests at stake here: The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree. Given this interest, and the failure to show that adult library users' access to the material is burdened in any significant degree, the statute is not unconstitutional on its face. If some libraries do not have the capacity to unblock specific Web sites or to disable the filter or if it is shown that an adult user's election to view constitutionally protected Internet material is burdened in some other substantial way, that would be the subject for an as-applied challenge, not this facial challenge. Pp. 214-215.

Justice Breyer agreed that the "public forum" doctrine is inapplicable here and that the statute's filtering software provisions do not vio-

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