The Protection Of The Innocent

In 1996, The United States Congress passed a law that they called the 'Communications Decency Act'. In the forementioned act, more precicely, section 505 demanded that cable operators that offered channels that were 100 percent dedicated to 'sexually oriented programing' were to do one of three things. They could scramble or completely block their channels between 6 in the morning till 10 at night where children where most likely to view it. They could also only broadcast between what was deemed the 'safe harbour' hours which were 10pm-6am. Congress said that the purpose of section 505 was to protect those who weren't subscribed to the network airing them from 'signal bleed' which back in 1996 was when certain audio or visual wave portions of the scrambled programs might mix in with regular shows and thus seen or heard.

In Febuary of 1996, Playboy Entertainment Group Inc. Filed a law suit challenging sections 505 of the communications Decency Act constintuionally. In Response to the suit a three-judge district court panel agreed that section 505 of the CDA 'was a content based restriction on speech that was subject to strict scrutiny.' In order to satisfy the Panels analysis of the governments argument, they were required to show that section 505 was carfully tailored to be the least restrictive way that furthered the goverments intrestest.

The Government, in response, gave three points to justify their advancement of section 505. The first point being that they wanted to protect children from adult explicit material. The second point was that they were supporting the parents right to raise their children as they see fit, and the third and final point was their belief that it was the best way to ensure an individual's right to p...

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...yer and Scalia made statements that “The majority hadn't made a realistic assessment of the alternatives” and “Section 505 was constitutional because it regulates the business of obscenity.”

In concurrence of Kennedy's opinion Justice Stevens outlined that Scalia's Criticisms of the majorities opinion, and his reasoning's for being in favor of section 505 was due to the fact he viewed the obscene as something more broadly then most others would view.

Thomas on the other hand noted that his decision on the case would have been differently if the broadcasts showed obscene material. He also noted that the goverment argued agaisnt indecent broadcasts, not obscene. In his statement, Thomas also stated that the First Amendment gave more protections over indecent material then it did over material that is deemed as outright obscene.

As stated in the earlier in the essay