WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court handed Playboy Enterprises Inc. a major victory Monday, striking down a law that requires sexually explicit cable television channels to completely block their signals to non-subscribing households.
The high court, by a 5-4 vote, agreed with Playboy's arguments that the 1996 federal law was too broad and violated constitutional First Amendment free-speech rights.
The Justice Department strongly defended the law that requires cable operators who show adult programs to "scramble" or block the signals, or air the programs only late at night when children presumably will not be watching television.
Congress, in adopting the Communications Decency Act, wanted to shield children from sexually oriented cable television networks, the Justice Department said.
But Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the court majority that the government failed to prove the law was the least restrictive means of addressing a real problem.
"Basic speech principles are at stake in this case," Kennedy wrote in the 22-page ruling. "Here, the government has not met the burden the First Amendment imposes."
The law was aimed at addressing "signal bleed" -- when audio or video signals from sexually explicit programming inadvertently comes through on channels of nonsubscribers. The programming usually is shown on pay-per-view channels.
If a cable operator cannot comply with the scrambling requirement, sexually explicit programming may be shown only when children presumably were unlikely to view it, an eight-hour time period that starts at 10 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m.
Playboy's lawyers said complying with the law would deprive it of $25 million in revenues over the next 10 years. Playboy said it would cost millions of dollars to install scrambling technology in all U.S. cable systems.
The Supreme Court agreed with Playboy in upholding an alternative in the law that requires cable channel operators to block any channel, free of charge, only if a customer requests it. Kennedy said the less restrictive alternative would serve the government's purpose.
He said targeted blocking was less restrictive than banning, and the government cannot ban speech when targeted blocking represented a feasible and effective alternative.
Joining Kennedy in the ruling were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Justice Stephen Breyer said in dissent that he would uphold the law as constitutional.
"Congress has taken seriously the importance of maintaining adult access to the sexually explicit channels here at issue," he said. "It has tailored the restrictions to minimize their impact upon adults while offering parents help in keeping unwanted transmissions from their children.
"By finding 'adequate alternatives' where there are none, the court reduces Congress' protective power to the vanishing point. This is not what the First Amendment demands," Breyer said.
