the library’s Internet use policy.  To protect minors from material harmful to minors, libraries could grant minors unfiltered access only if accompanied by a parent, or upon parental consent, or could require minors to use unfiltered terminals in view of library staff.  To prevent patrons from being unwillingly exposed to offensive, sexually explicit content, libraries can offer patrons the option of using blocking software, can place unfiltered terminals outside of patrons’ sight lines, and can use privacy screens and recessed monitors.  While none of these less restrictive alternatives are perfect, the government has failed to show that they are significantly less effective than filtering software, which itself fails to block access to large amounts of speech that fall within the categories sought to be blocked.

In view of the severe limitations of filtering technology and the existence of these less restrictive alternatives, we conclude that it is not possible for a public library to comply with CIPA without blocking a very substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech, in violation of the First Amendment.  Because this conclusion derives from the inherent limits of the filtering technology mandated by CIPA, it holds for any library that complies with CIPA’s conditions.  Hence, even under the stricter standard of facial invalidity proposed by the government, which would require us to uphold CIPA if only a single library can comply with CIPA’s conditions without violating the First Amendment, we conclude that CIPA is facially invalid, since it will induce public libraries, as state actors, to violate the First Amendment.  Because we hold that CIPA is invalid on these grounds, we need not reach the plaintiffs’ alternative theories that CIPA is invalid as a prior restraint on speech and is unconstitutionally vague.  Nor need we decide whether CIPA is invalid because it requires public libraries, as a condition on the receipt of federal funds, to relinquish their own First Amendment rights to provide the public with unfiltered Internet access, a theory that we nonetheless feel constrained to discuss (at length) in the margin.

Having determined that CIPA violates the First Amendment, we would usually be required to determine whether CIPA is severable from the remainder of the statutes governing LSTA and E-rate funding.  Neither party, however, has advanced the argument that CIPA is not severable from the remainder the Library Services and Technology Act and Communications Act of 1934 (the two statutes governing LSTA and E-rate funding, respectively), and at all events, we think that CIPA is severable.  “The inquiry into whether a statute is severable is essentially an inquiry into legislative intent.”  Minn. v.  Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172, 191 (1999).  “Unless it is evident that the legislature would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power, independently of that which is not, the invalid part may be dropped