Facts
- Federal law required the Postmaster General to detain unsealed foreign mail determined to be “communist political propaganda” and to deliver it only if the addressee affirmatively requested delivery after receiving a notice card.
- The implementing procedure required the addressee to return a government form to obtain the material; failure to respond within a set period was treated as a desire not to receive that publication or similar ones in the future.
- Corliss Lamont, a publisher and recipient of foreign publications, had a copy of the Peking Review detained and refused to return the request card.
- Lamont challenged the scheme as violating the First and Fifth Amendments.
- A three-judge district court upheld the statute in one case, while a different three-judge district court struck it down in a related case; the Supreme Court consolidated the appeals.
Issues
- Whether requiring an addressee to affirmatively request delivery of detained foreign political propaganda unconstitutionally burdens First Amendment rights, including the right to receive information.
Decision
- The Supreme Court held the statute unconstitutional as construed and applied.
- The Court ruled that forcing the addressee to perform an “official act” to obtain delivery imposed an unconstitutional limitation on First Amendment rights.
- The Court reversed the judgment upholding the statute and affirmed the judgment invalidating it.
- The decision was unanimous among participating Justices (Justice White did not participate).
Legal Principles
- The First Amendment protects a recipient’s right to receive information and ideas, not only a speaker’s right to distribute them.
- Government may not condition receipt of lawful expressive material on an affirmative act that is likely to deter or chill the exercise of First Amendment rights.
- A content-based delivery barrier that requires self-identification to obtain disfavored political material operates as an unconstitutional restraint on access to protected speech.
Conclusion
The Court invalidated a federal postal detention scheme that required addressees to request delivery of foreign “communist political propaganda,” holding that the affirmative-request requirement impermissibly burdened and deterred the First Amendment right to receive information.