In two cases decided within three months of each other, the U.S. Supreme Court and the New Jersey Supreme Court each have issued unanimous decisions holding that persons convicted of sex crimes may not have their access to the internet unreasonably restricted. In the most recent of these, Packingham v. North Carolina, decided on June 19, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision by the North Carolina Supreme Court that had affirmed the conviction of a released sex offender for violating a statute making it a felony for a registered sex offender “to access a social networking site where the sex offender knows that the site permits minor children to become members or to create of maintain personal Web pages.” The term “social networking site” was defined broadly, and the petitioner had violated the statute by posting on Facebook—a social networking site under the statutory definition—a message praising God and state authorities for dismissing a traffic ticket he had received.

Packingham is one of the first cases in which the Supreme Court has discussed “the First Amendment and the modern internet,” as it points out. For this reason alone it is noteworthy. But in addition, Packingham's majority decision written by Justice Kennedy is noteworthy for its vivid language describing the important role of the internet in today's society. And the concurring opinion written by Justice Alito is no less vigorous in the First Amendment protection to internet access it would afford.

Effectively, the North Carolina statute barred Packingham from almost all access to the internet, even though his crime did not involve internet use. Said the court, today, “cyberspace—the vast democratic forums of the Internet,” is the most important place for the exchange of views, noting that Facebook, the site used by Packingham, has 1.79 billion active users. The court noted that on Facebook and other popular sites, people debate religion and politics, share vacation photos, look for work, and petition elective representatives, among other things. Thus the court said that the statutory restriction scrutinized in this case is “unprecedented in the scope of First Amendment speech it burdens,” barring access to “vast realms of human thought and knowledge.”