Cite as: 539 U. S. 194 (2003)
Souter, J., dissenting
the Act's blocking requirement in its current breadth calls for unconstitutional action by a library recipient, and is itself unconstitutional.
would be unlikely plaintiffs, given that their private audience would be unaffected by the library's action, and many of them might have no more idea that a library is blocking their work than the library does. It is for this reason that I rely on the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of adult library patrons, who would experience the more acute injury by being denied a look at anything the software identified as apt to harm a child (and whatever else got blocked along with it). In practical terms, if libraries and the National Government are going to be kept from engaging in unjustifiable adult censorship, there is no alternative to recognizing a viewer's or reader's right to be free of paternalistic censorship as at least an adjunct of the core right of the speaker. The plurality in Board of Ed., Island Trees Union Free School Dist. No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U. S. 853 (1982), saw this and recognized the right of students using a school library to object to the removal of disfavored books from the shelves, id., at 865-868 (opinion of Brennan, J.). By the same token, we should recognize an analogous right on the part of a library's adult Internet users, who may be among the 10% of American Internet users whose access comes solely through library terminals, see 201 F. Supp. 2d, at 422. There should therefore be no question that censorship by blocking produces real injury sufficient to support a suit for redress by patrons whose access is denied.
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