I.  Preliminary Statement

This case challenges an act of Congress that makes the use of filtering software by

public libraries a condition of the receipt of federal funding.  The Internet, as is well

known, is a vast, interactive medium based on a decentralized network of computers

around the world.  Its most familiar feature is the World Wide Web (the  Web ), a

network of computers known as servers that provide content to users.  The Internet

provides easy access to anyone who wishes to provide or distribute information to a

worldwide audience; it is used by more than 143 million Americans.  Indeed, much of the

world's knowledge accumulated over centuries is available to Internet users almost

instantly.  Approximately 10% of the Americans who use the Internet access it at public

libraries.  And approximately 95% of all public libraries in the United States provide

public access to the Internet.

While the beneficial effect of the Internet in expanding the amount of information 

available to its users is self evident, its low entry barriers have also led to a perverse

result   facilitation of the widespread dissemination of hardcore pornography within the

easy reach not only of adults who have every right to access it (so long as it is not legally

obscene or child pornography), but also of children and adolescents to whom it may be

quite harmful.  The volume of pornography on the Internet is huge, and the record before

us demonstrates that public library patrons of all ages, many from ages 11 to 15, have

regularly sought to access it in public library settings.  There are more than 100,000

pornographic Web sites that can be accessed for free and without providing any

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