Stopping Junk Mail

Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is material he finds offensive.

--Chief Justice Warren Burger

"Junk mail" last week confronted the Supreme Court with a familiar task: how to resolve a clash between competing constitutional values. Do publishers and other senders have a free-speech right to seek an audience by mailing unsolicited advertisements? Or do recipients have a prior right of privacy that allows them to bar the stuff that floods their mailboxes?

The issue was raised by 14 California publishers. They challenged the 1967 federal anti-pandering law, which empowers any citizen to cut off the flow of mailed ads that he personally considers "erotically arousing or sexually provocative." The recipient simply notifies the Post Office, which then orders his name removed from the sender's mailing lists.

The challengers claimed that the law violates their constitutional right to communicate. Moreover, they argued, the law threatens all "junk mail"--not just erotic material. Indeed, the Post Office concedes that some of the 290,000 objectors who have invoked the statute have claimed to be aroused by ads that merely pictured girdles or bed sheets.

Even so, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law. Giving the recipient absolute power to decide what arouses him is perfectly proper, the court ruled, and neatly avoids censorship by the Government. Speaking for the court, Chief Justice Burger affirmed every citizen's right "to be let alone" and added: "A mailer's right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee."

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