Lester Gerard Packingham, Petitioner v. North Carolina.

Summary

The Supreme Court held that North Carolina's statute making it a felony for a registered sex offender to access commercial social networking websites violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Even assuming the law is content neutral and subject to intermediate scrutiny, it is not narrowly tailored: with one broad stroke it bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking employment ads, and speaking and listening in the modern public square, burdening substantially more speech than necessary to protect children from sexual abuse. The Court reversed the North Carolina Supreme Court and remanded. Justice Alito, concurring in the judgment joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas, agreed the statute's extraordinary breadth rendered it invalid but criticized the majority's 'undisciplined dicta' equating cyberspace with public streets and parks.