the Court held that a federal statute requiring the Postmaster
General to halt delivery of communist propaganda unless the
addressee affirmatively requested the material violated the First
Amendment:
We rest on the narrow ground that the addressee in
order to receive his mail must request in writing that
it be delivered. This amounts in our judgment to an
unconstitutional abridgment of the addressee's First
Amendment rights. The addressee carries an affirmative
obligation which we do not think the Government may
impose on him. This requirement is almost certain to
have a deterrent effect, especially as respects those
who have sensitive positions.
Id. at 307.


Similarly, in Denver Area Educational Telecommunications
Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727 (1996), the Court held
unconstitutional a federal law requiring cable operators to allow
access to patently offensive, sexually explicit programming only
to those subscribers who requested access to the programming in
advance and in writing. Id. at 732-33. As in Lamont, the Court
in Denver reasoned that this content-based restriction on
recipients' access to speech would have an impermissible chilling
effect: "[T]he written notice requirement will . . . restrict
viewing by subscribers who fear for their reputations should the
operator, advertently or inadvertently, disclose the list of
those who wish to watch the 'patently offensive' channel." Id.
at 754; see also Fabulous Assocs., Inc. v. Pa. Pub. Util. Comm'n,
896 F.2d 780, 785 (3d Cir. 1990) (considering the