It reaches the part of the activity that is unrelated to the government preventative purpose. He was not accused of communicating with for viewing the probe while of a minor. He violated section 202. 5 by speaking. To view or were respond to any of the thousands of twitter messages about his case in this court, that would be a felony. Occupy the law does not some sleepy First Amendment corner. It is a very platforms on which americans are likely to communicate to organize for social change and to petition their government. Could the state impose that . Your honor, i think they have much more authority to impose this. And limited and i think if you had something as sweeping as this, i dont think they could do that. Justice ginsburg. The most fundamental right is taken away. Some states prohibit sit science from voting. Some states prohibits being bearing arms. Those are constitutional ites. They are different. They are fundamental but they are different. In the case of voting, North Carolina does not take it away. In richardson versus ramirez, it said in section two and the 14th amendment that there was a affirmative sanction for disenfranchisement. If you look at that same section which dealt with the people who work in the civil war, you did not need to restore their First Amendment rights. When somebodys convicted of a crime, they immediately lose their Second Amendment rights. ,nd the scheinman sister kate simone was a serial killer who wanted to write prison. Difficult whenle examined at the text in history. We didnt have a lot of history concerning web sites and. And i dont think that is a useful guide. I agree. When we talk about the history, the history is there is not a tradition or history of taking away First Amendment rights. When a court says First Amendment rights are inalienable, you do not have a lot of history of having such sites or access where they can access to minors of the sort that is problematic with respect to this individual. I do not disagree with you. There are violent video games as not any there is reconstruction era. There is no history when you talk about all the things that historically is restricted. Suppose we try to translate bes into terms that would familiar at the time of the adoption of the worst amendment. Suppose the state enacted a law of anyone convicted of kidnapping and children from. Isiting a school would that be a violation of the First Amendment . I dont think so. I dont know there is a First Amendment right to visit a kindergartner. This law only applies in the places where everything that happened is a First Amendment activity whether it is receiving information or associating. Someone who was a sex offender could not communicate with a minor. Agree that that would be constitutional . Answer is it is much less restrictive which shows why this law is unconstitutional. That is what the prosecutors there is a concern here for the safety of children. Unless it is less restrictive. Would it be constitutional . I think it probably would be. The difference is if you take the test, the narrow test which is a fundamentally quantitative it implicates the interest. If youre talking about communicating with minor for viewing the pages of minors, that is the protected interest of the state being asserted. Here, everything they are suppressing is indifferent as to whether it is a petitioner in convicted for saying thank you jesus, god is good about a parking ticket to an audience. Tailored asarrowly Justice Ginsburgs example, it convicted crime for a sex offender or someone convicted previously of committing a sex offense using the internet from contacting on the internet a person who is known by that person to be a minor without the consent of the parents of the minor. That would be a violation of the First Amendment . That would be constitutional. Im sorry if i was not clear about that. I would still say i am not here to say that hypothetical law. One of the concerns with this law that you handled by narrowing it to a subset of people, this applies to everyone on the registry and it applies on a cyclical basis on the theory that as a collective they have a higher rate of recidivism than people on average. , thatrst amendment cases is a problematic assumption. Especially with a population like this that is so heterogenous and constantly evaluated. It is not clear to me why you would take peoples First Amendments rights away for life. Overbroad . Tatute to is what do you think i know you say all of those. All of the above. A level of where scrutiny will make a difference. Suppose there were an in whichon, a Program Officers could monitor your video in your cyber equipment and disclose if you are communicating with minors. Could that be a law that every convicted person has to consent to that app and to that surveillance . I think that goes to the question, and i can answer Justice Sotomayors question as the status of is registering in terms of someones Constitutional Rights . That is clearly much less restrictive from a First Amendment perspective because people like mr. Packing him, people who want to do things that are harmless and fully effective and it is as a deterrent. From a First Amendment perspective, that is a home run. There is a Fourth Amendment question. Ordinarily once you are done with supervised relief you have full First Amendment. For the state, it does aerything perfectly in certain sense except the state has a sense of what you may be up to, which is a concern. They are essentially able to determine people and people who want to speak id think part of what the state is saying here is that it does not have the capacity to do that. It does not have the capacity to check message by message or click by click when a person is doing. In the absence of that, the prophylactic remedy is needed. If you think of a case like feet fromich is a 50 the polling places, that is a galactic rule. Rophylactic rule. Obviously there are times prophylactic rules are good under law. When he was convicted they said he could not have contact with the civic victims of crime. Otherwise that would be an abridgment of our freedom of speech. There is no general rule. Ordinarily, neither one of you wants to allow people but even as we have been talking about that are focused on teenagers on the internet and having specific contact with them, those are prophylactic rules as well. The question is can you do it at the first step . What was your answer . The statute prohibits a convicted sex offender from spending more than five minutes at a childrens playground. Is that constitutional or not . I think that is constitutional. Thenstead of what most of breeds do is interpret the statute as broadly as possible, were trying to interpret it as narrowly as possible. As narrowly as possible, it does seem to be a necessary condition. It facilitates the social interaction between two or more persons. And these are children they are talking about. To a more persons for the purposes of friendship. Meaning up in person or information exchanges. Now we have a definition that sounds as if they are talking about dating sites or their talking about related playgroup sites if you take younger children. Is it possible to read it that way . And if you do read it that way is it constitutional . The first answer to the playground, you start with what is the First Amendment right being abridged . Im not sure i see a First Amendment right. I wanted to get your answer. I think i have that. In theally interested narrow possibility of interpretative get as i said. In that case it is applied unconstitutionally. Your honor, this is a criminal case. It does not arise as a civil case. This is first and foremost applied challenge. Youre not attacking the statute. Your only attacking it applied to your client. In a criminal case, the court has the power to say that this problem here is a problem for every application. That is what we have argued. Back to my question. Were treating it as applied challenge . That narrowr is construction, im not sure that is possible. That narrow construction in this case will not make any difference because as i understand your hypothetical statute or construction, that is not, he did not violate the law. All im doing is reading one word before the information exchange. The word i am reading is related information exchange. Interpreted, that cause seems to be talking about dating sites or the lower age level equivalent. Says,t does what it facilitates the social introduction between two or more persons for the purpose of friendship, meeting other persons or related information exchanges. I have now got a social, dating, or equivalent site. I think i can say that. If i say that, is it constitutional . That is what im trying to get your answer to. To datingere limited sites, i would assume it is constitutional. I dont think the state has ever said this is about dating sites. That is my first and most important point. He was not on a dating site. Then the answer to this would be they have not applied it to that way here and given the way they have applied it here, they cannot do that. I dont think they have ever applied it. , they tend to have eight restrictions that only apply to adults. Hink it is their position i think the state position is they never proposed that. They want to go after these guys , the classic social networking site. The interpretation of Justice Breyer, the language that Justice Breyer is referring to and other leg which in the statute could for the purpose of avoiding First Amendment coreems, be limited to social networking sites. Including facebook. Excluding a lot of the other sites that the electronic says are included like the New York Times and Betty Crocker and things like that. It would be limited just to social networking site. Using constitutional avoidance could be narrowed to at least those. Honestly am not sure that it can. It is important from a constitutional question that that is irrelevant. How do we win this case, what is the a guest problem of the statute . Just to put it into context, it is important for purposes as an applied challenge because what youre client used was facebook. Right. So even if we were limited to those and for the very reason we talked about, which is this is jewslike the law in the for jesus airport case in los angeles that said no First Amendment activity in this place , this is a law that says no First Amendment activity. One of my problems with all of these sites today is that none of them were very few of them are purely anything anymore. Thinks of the like linkedin, which many people in our Society Today are looking for jobs there. High School Students are committed to look for jobs and to post their data, personal data on that site. Is that traditional social media or not . I think the state says it is because it meets the definition. Isthat is my point, which facebook, many people, many businesses are using it for commercial advertising. That is very true. There is another defendant who was prosecuted alongside my client who was an i. T. Person. He lost his job because his employer said it is impossible for you to do your job if you cant get on these sites. All of these questions implicate what Justice Sotomayor are asked earlier. What is the category that we use . This will for you and say statute is a file a shot of the First Amendment because what are the basic rules . The choices you offer us to say why this is unconstitutional . The most straightforward a sick thing to say is not narrowly tailored and stop there, or overbroad which is the flip side. Sometimes that is a confusing word because it has this third party, in the airport case says that goes way too far because it prohibits lots of First Amendment speech. If you just take the narrow tailoring test with the taxpayer versus vincent, does this is the theory of this law that it restricts speech on the possibility that this will lead to some other harm, that inherently is not going to be a narrowly tailored law. Or you can look at it as how much is a protected activity suppressed . How much implicates that purpose. That is a really straightforward way. You can go through every prong of the word analysis. This is a stark case in terms of alternative channels. This poses some of the most important channels of communication in our society. You could say that too. What the court said is that if it is not narrowly tailored, that then it is unconstitutional. Under narrow tailoring, i think it is incumbent upon you to come up with a more narrowly tailored alternative. In the North Carolina legislature and youre told you cant do this, what would you do as the most effective alternative . I think the opinion said it was not incumbent on the challenger to come up with the alternative. But here it said the state has to show that it seriously on that series they considered alternatives. I buy you agree with me that North Carolina could been communicating with a minor by social media. I guess the response to that is how do you know that it is a minor, or how is i assume that miners can put on that they dont have to have their age in their email. They dont have to communicate it in the text of the message that is put on the site. Response might be that that is not terribly effective. Two answers. First of all, if you look at the blue brief where there are closing arguments in this case. The da lays out and this is not a case where we have come up with some exotic area about how you can narrow this law. In orderys to the jury to convict, you might not like this law. They might have a law that says dont have specific contact on facebook or dont say specific things that might contract teenagers, and this law does not say that. Even if you dont agree with it or like it, the law says you cannot access. That does not say that because it would not work. He says here is an alternative you might like. Maybe the legislature did not enacted because it would be included and would not be defective. Would be effective or ineffective exactly the same way this law is effective or ineffective. Abouting the state argued the effectiveness is this will prevent people from doing something. The only way it prevents people is by punishing them and to turn them. It does enable the state to find people. Way you can actually detect what people are up to. Thatature of this law is it is most likely to find the people who are doing nothing wrong and if you envision the subcategory of predators who are using the these sites, they and lurking on these sites, they are going to do their very best to hide their identity. Justice sotomayor mr. Goldberg, why was your client using an alias . Mr. Goldberg i think Justice Sotomayor if he wasnt lurking or otherwise trying to stay hidden . Mr. Goldberg so, your honor, he wasnt lurking. I dont think theres any basis for saying he was lurking because they then looked at his hard drive. They got the information from facebook. There are crimes that they could have charged him with, and presumably, if he was doing something that was a serious violation involving teenagers, he would have been prosecuted for Something Like that. So the alias that he was using was it and ill put that in scare quotes was his name that he goes by and his middle name. And his page had his picture, and he had a profile that linked to his father whose name is lester g. Packingham, sr. And so the officer in this case was able to find him in about two seconds. And obviously, he was posting publicly about something that is about religion and his experience at court that Justice Sotomayor go back to Justice Kennedys question, if you would, which is, is there a capacity to determine the age of a user; meaning, is there a way for the state to be able to track whether or not a potential defendant is actually in communication with a minor . Mr. Goldberg well, two things, your honor. This statute, the states description of the statute has always they already have a law about communicating using the internet with a minor. So they already thats a different law. Their theory of this case is about the power to gather information. The second thing is that peoples ages are verified by facebook. And in a prosecution, if the assumption was that the person was younger than 18, they would then be able to verify that by getting the records and finding out. If the court has no further questions, id like to reserve the balance of my time. Chief Justice Roberts thank you, counsel. Mr. Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court. For many years, North Carolina, like other states, had laws prohibiting sex offenders from being at physical places where children congregate; schools, playgrounds, day cares, and parks. In 2008, North Carolina decided to prohibit sex offenders from being at virtual places where children congregate online; specifically, commercial social networking websites. North carolina passed section 202. 5 to cover the people most likely to sexually assault children. Unlike some of the other alternatives, or unlike the alternatives proposed, this law is enforceable and effective. One of the things that was said Justice Kagan social networking, it includes facebook, obviously; it includes linkedin; it includes twitter; is that right . Mr. Montgomery that would be correct. Justice kagan