Based upon the foregoing discussion, we hold that a public library’s content-based restriction on patrons’ access to speech on the Internet is subject to strict scrutiny.  Every item in a library’s print collection has been selected because library staff, or a party to whom staff delegates the decision, deems the content to be particularly valuable.  In contrast, the Internet, as a forum, is open to any member of the public to speak, and hence, even when a library provides filtered Internet access, it creates a public forum in which the vast majority of the speech has been reviewed by neither librarians nor filtering companies.  Under public forum doctrine, where the state creates such a forum open to any member of the public to speak on an unlimited number of subjects, the state’s decision selectively to exclude certain speech on the basis of its content, is subject to strict scrutiny, since such exclusions risk distorting the marketplace of ideas that the state has created.  Application of strict scrutiny to public libraries’ content-based restrictions on their patrons’ access to the Internet finds further support in the analogy to traditional public fora, such as sidewalks, parks, and squares, in which content-based restrictions on speech are always subject to strict scrutiny.  Like these traditional public fora, Internet access in public libraries uniquely promotes First Amendment values, by offering low barriers to entry to speakers and listeners.  The content of speech on the Internet is as diverse as human thought, and the extent to which the Internet promotes First Amendment values is evident from the sheer breadth of speech that this new medium enables.  To survive strict scrutiny, a public library’s use of filtering software must be narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest, and there must be no less restrictive alternative that could effectively further that interest.  We find that, given the crudeness of filtering technology, any technology protection measure mandated by CIPA will necessarily block access to a substantial amount of speech whose suppression serves no legitimate government interest.  This lack of narrow tailoring cannot be cured by CIPA’s disabling provisions, because patrons will often be deterred from asking the library’s permission to access an erroneously blocked Web page, and anonymous requests for unblocking cannot be acted on without delaying the patron’s access to the blocked Web page, thereby impermissibly burdening access to speech on the basis of its content.

Moreover, less restrictive alternatives exist to further a public library’s legitimate interests in preventing its computers from being used to access obscenity, child pornography, or in the case of minors, material harmful to minors, and in preventing patrons from being unwillingly exposed to patently offensive, sexually explicit speech.  Libraries may use a variety of means to monitor their patrons’ use of the Internet and impose sanctions on patrons who violate