In the alternative, Trans Union argues that the FCRA's target marketing restriction fails even intermediate scrutiny. Again, the cases the company cites are distinguishable. In
Edenfield v. Fane, for example, the Supreme Court struck down a state rule prohibiting certified public accountants from personally soliciting new clients, partly because the state failed to establish that the rule would directly promote the state's interest in reducing fraud.
507 U.S. 761, 113 S.Ct. 1792, 123 L.Ed.2d 543 (1993). Here, by contrast, the government cannot promote its interest (protection of personal financial data) except by regulating speech because the speech itself (dissemination of financial data) causes the very harm the government seeks to prevent. Thus, the FCRA unquestionably advances the identified state interest. For the same reason, unlike in
Greater New Orleans Broad. Ass'n, Inc. v. United States, where the Court struck down a ban on casino advertising, in part because “practical and nonspeech-related forms of regulation ... could more directly and effectively” advance the government's interest in reducing casino gambling,
527 U.S. 173, 192, 119 S.Ct. 1923, 1934, 144 L.Ed.2d 161 (1999), here there is no possibility that some less-restrictive or nonspeech-related regulation could achieve the identified state interest.
See also Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U.S. 476, 115 S.Ct. 1585, 131 L.Ed.2d 532 (1995) (striking down prohibition on beer labels that identify alcohol content, in part because government interest in preventing brewers from competing on basis of alcohol content could be advanced through less-restrictive regulations);
44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, 517 U.S. 484, 507, 116 S.Ct. 1495, 1510, 184 L.Ed.2d 711 (1996) (invalidating Rhode Island's ban on advertising of retail prices of alcoholic beverages because “alternative forms of regulation that would not involve any restriction on speech ... would be more likely to achieve the State's goal of promoting temperance”). Finally, also unlike in
Greater New Orleans Broad. Ass'n, where the challenged statute was “pierced by exemptions and inconsistencies,”
527 U.S. at 190, 119 S.Ct. at 1933, here we confront a law with just one exception: the permissive standard applied to information sold for prescreening.