United States Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations

453 U.S. 114, 101 S. Ct. 2676, 69 L. Ed. 2d 517, 1981 U.S. LEXIS 127, 7 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1505, 49 U.S.L.W. 4813

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: June 25, 1981
• Docket: 80-608
• Status: Published

Opinions

Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We noted probable jurisdiction to decide whether the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York correctly determined that 18 U. S. C. § 1725, which prohibits the deposit of unstamped “mailable matter” in a letterbox approved by the United States Postal Service, unconstitutionally abridges the First Amendment rights of certain civic associations in Westchester County, N. Y. 449 U. S. 1076 (1981). Jurisdiction of this Court rests on 28 U. S. C. § 1252.

I

Appellee Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations (Council) is an umbrella organization for a number of civic groups in Westchester County, N. Y. Appellee Saw Mill Valley Civic Association is one of the Council’s member groups. In June 1976, the Postmaster in White Plains, N. Y., notified the Chairman of the Saw Mill Valley Civic Association that the association’s practice of delivering messages to local residents by placing unstamped notices and pamphlets in the letterboxes of private homes was in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1725, which provides:

“Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits any mailable matter such as statements of accounts, circulars, sale bills, or other like matter, on which no postage has been paid, in any letter box established, approved, or accepted by the Postal Service for the receipt or delivery of mail matter on any mail route with intent to avoid payment of lawful postage thereon, shall for each such offense be fined not more than $300.”

Saw Mill Valley Civic Association and other Council members were advised that if they continued their practice of placing unstamped notices in the letterboxes of private homes it could result in a fine not to exceed $300.

In February 1977, appellees filed this suit in the District Court for declaratory and injunctive relief from the Postal Service’s threatened enforcement of § 1725. Appellees contended that the enforcement of § 1725 would inhibit their communication with residents of the town of Greenburgh and would thereby deny them the freedom of speech and freedom of the press secured by the First Amendment.

The District Court initially dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted. 448 F. Supp. 159 (SDNY 1978). On appeal, however, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded the case to the District Court to give the parties “an opportunity to submit proof as to the extent of the handicap to communication caused by enforcement of the statute in the area involved, on the one hand, and the need for the restriction for protection of the mails, on the other.” 586 F. 2d 935, 936 (1978). In light of this language, it was not unreasonable for the District Court to conclude that it had been instructed to “try” the statute, much as more traditional issues of fact are tried by a court, and that is what the District Court proceeded to do.

In the proceedings on remand, the Postal Service offered three general justifications for § 1725: (1) that § 1725 protects mail revenues; (2) that it facilitates the efficient and secure delivery of the mails; and (3) that it promotes the privacy of mail patrons. More specifically, the Postal Service argued that elimination of § 1725 could cause the overcrowding of mailboxes due to the deposit of civic association notices. Such overcrowding would in turn constitute an impediment to the delivery of the mails. Testimony was offered that § 1725 aided the investigation of mail theft by restricting access to letterboxes, thereby enabling postal investigators to assume that anyone other than a postal carrier or a householder who opens a mailbox may be engaged in the violation of the law. On this point, a postal inspector testified that 10% of the arrests made under the external mail theft statute, 18 U. S. C. § 1708, resulted from surveillance-type operations which benefit from enforcement of § 1725. Testimony was also introduced that § 1725 has been particularly helpful in the investigation of thefts of government benefit checks from letterboxes.¹

The Postal Service introduced testimony that it would incur additional expense if § 1725 were either eliminated or held to be inapplicable to civic association materials. If delivery in mailboxes were expanded to permit civic association circulars — but not other types of nonmailable matter such as commercial materials — mail carriers would be obliged to remove and examine individual unstamped items found in letterboxes to determine if their deposit there was lawful. Carriers would also be confronted with a larger amount of unstamped mailable matter which they would be obliged to separate from outgoing mail. The extra time resulting from these additional activities, when computed on a nationwide basis, would add substantially to the daily cost of mail delivery.

The final justification offered by the Postal Service for § 1725 was that the statute provided significant protection for the privacy interests of postal customers. Section 1725 provides postal customers the means to send and receive mails without fear of their correspondence becoming known to members of the community.

The Postal Service also argued at trial that the enforcement of § 1725 left appellees with ample alternative means of delivering their message. The appellees can deliver their messages either by paying postage, by hanging their notices on doorknobs, by placing their notices under doors or under a doormat, by using newspaper or nonpostal boxes affixed to houses or mailbox posts, by telephoning their constituents, by engaging in person-to-person delivery in public areas, by tacking or taping their notices on a door post or letterbox post, or by placing advertisements in local newspapers. A survey was introduced comparing the effectiveness of certain of these alternatives which arguably demonstrated that between 70-75% of the materials placed under doors or doormats or hung from doorknobs were found by the homeowner whereas approximately 82% of the items placed in letterboxes were found. This incidental difference, it was argued, cannot be of constitutional significance.

The District Court found the above arguments of the Postal Service insufficient to sustain the constitutionality of § 1725 at least as applied to these appellees. 490 F. Supp. 157 (1980). Relying on the earlier opinion of the Court of Appeals, the District Court noted that the legal standard it was to apply would give the appellees relief if the curtailment of their interest in free expression resulting from enforcement of § 1725 substantially outweighed the Government’s interests in the effective delivery and protection of the mails. The District Court concluded that the appellees had satisfied this standard.

The District Court based its decision on several findings. The court initially concluded that because civic associations generally have small cash reserves and cannot afford the applicable postage rates, mailing of the appellees’ message would be financially burdensome. Similarly, because of the relatively slow pace of the mail, use of the mails at certain times would impede the appellees’ ability to communicate quickly with their constituents. Given the widespread awareness of the high cost and limited celerity of the mails, the court probably could have taken judicial notice of both of these findings.

The court also found that none of the alternative means of delivery suggested by the Postal Service were “nearly as effective as placing civic association flyers in approved mailboxes; so that restriction on the [appellees’] delivery methods to such alternatives also constitutes a serious burden on [appellees’] ability to communicate with their constituents.” 490 F. Supp., at 160.² Accordingly, the District Court declared § 1725 unconstitutional as applied to appellees and the Council’s member associations and enjoined the Postal Service from enforcing it as to them.

II

The present case is a good example of Justice Holmes’ aphorism that “a page of history is worth a volume of logic.” New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U. S. 345, 349 (1921). For only by review of the history of the postal system and its present statutory and regulatory scheme can the constitutional challenge to § 1725 be placed in its proper context.

By the early 18th century, the posts were made a sovereign function in almost all nations because they were considered a sovereign necessity. Government without communication is impossible, and until the invention of the telephone and telegraph, the mails were the principal means of communication. Kappel Commission, Toward Postal Excellence, Report of the President’s Commission on Postal Organization 47 (Comm. Print 1968). Little progress was made in developing a postal system in Colonial America until the appointment of Benjamin Franklin, formerly Postmaster at Philadelphia, as Deputy Postmaster General for the American Colonies in 1753. In 1775, Franklin was named the first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress, and, because of the trend toward war, the Continental Congress undertook its first serious effort to establish a secure mail delivery organization in order to maintain communication between the States and to supply revenue for the Army. D. Adie, An Evaluation of Postal Service Wage Rates 2 (American Enterprise Institute, 1977).

Given the importance of the post to our early Nation, it is not surprising that when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, Art. I, § 8, provided Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” for executing this task. The Post Office played a vital yet largely unappreciated role in the development of our new Nation. Stagecoach trails which were improved by the Government to become post roads quickly became arteries of commerce. Mail contracts were of great assistance to the early development of new means of transportation such as canals, railroads, and eventually airlines. Kappel Commission, Toward Postal Excellence, supra, at 46. During this developing stage, the Post Office was to many citizens situated across the country the most visible symbol of national unity. Ibid.

The growth of postal service over the past 200 years has been remarkable. Annual revenues increased from less than $40 million in 1790 to close to $200 million in 1829 when the Postmaster General first became a member of the Cabinet. However, expenditures began exceeding revenues as early as the 1820’s as the postal structure struggled to keep pace with the rapid growth of the country westward. Because of this expansion, delivery costs to the South and West raised average postal costs nationally. To prevent competition from private express services, Congress passed the Postal Act of 1845, which prohibited competition in letter mail and established what is today referred to as the “postal monopoly.”

More recently, to deal with the problems of increasing deficits and shortcomings in the overall management and efficiency of the Post Office, Congress passed the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. This Act transformed the Post Office Department into a Government-owned corporation called the United States Postal Service. The Postal Service today is among the largest employers in the world, with a work force nearing 700,000 processing 106.3 billion pieces of mail each year. Ann. Rep. of the Postmaster General 2, 11 (1980). The Postal Service is the Nation’s largest user of floor space, and the Nation’s largest nonmilitary purchaser of transport, operating more than 200,000 vehicles. Its rural carriers alone travel over 21 million miles each day and its city carriers walk or drive another million miles a day. D. Adie, An Evaluation of Postal Service Wage Rates, supra, at 1. Its operating budget in fiscal 1980 exceeded $17 billion. Ann. Rep. of the Postmaster General, supra, at 2.

Not surprisingly, Congress has established a detailed statutory and regulatory scheme to govern this country’s vast postal system. See 39 U. S. C. § 401 et seq. and the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), which has been incorporated by reference in the Code of Federal Regulations, 39 CFR pt. 3 (1980). Under 39 U. S. C. §403 (a), the Postal Service is directed to “plan, develop, promote, and provide adequate and efficient postal services at fair and reasonable rates and fees.” Section 403 (b)(1) similarly directs the Postal Service “to maintain an efficient system of collection; sorting, and delivery of the mail nationwide,” and under 39 U. S. C. § 401 the Postal Service is broadly empowered to adopt rules and regulations designed to accomplish the above directives.

Acting under this authority, the Postal Service has provided by regulation that both urban and rural postal customers must provide appropriate mail receptacles meeting detailed specifications concerning size, shape, and dimensions. DMM 155.41, 155.43, 156.311, 156.51, and 156.54. By regulation, the Postal Service has also provided that “[e]very letter box or other receptacle intended or used for the receipt or delivery of mail on any city delivery route, rural delivery route, highway contract route, or other mail route is designated an authorized depository for mail within the meaning of 18 U. S. C. [§] 1725.” DMM 151.1. A letterbox provided by a postal customer which meets the Postal Service's specifications not only becomes part of the Postal Service’s nationwide system for the receipt and delivery of mail, but is also afforded the protection of the federal statutes prohibiting the damaging or destruction of mail deposited therein. See 18 U. S. C. §§ 1702, 1705, and 1708.

It is not without irony that this elaborate system of regulation, coupled with the historic dependence of the Nation on the Postal Service, has been the causal factor which led to this litigation. For it is because of the very fact that virtually every householder wishes to have a mailing address and a receptacle in which mail sent to that address will be deposited by the Postal Service that the letterbox or other mail receptacle is attractive to those who wish to convey messages within a locality but do not wish to purchase the stamp or pay such other fee as would permit them to be transmitted by the Postal Service. To the extent that the “alternative means” eschewed by the appellees and found to be inadequate alternatives by the District Court are in fact so, it is in no small part attributable to the fact that the typical mail patron first looks for written communications from the “outside world” not under his doormat, or inside the screen of his front door, but in his letterbox. Notwithstanding the increasing frequency of complaints about the rising cost of using the Postal Service, and the uncertainty of. the time which passes between mailing and delivery, written communication making use of the Postal Service is so much a fact of our daily lives that the mail patron watching for the mail-truck, or the jobholder returning from work looking in his letterbox before he enters his house, are commonplaces of our society. Indeed, according to the appellees the receptacles for mailable matter are so superior to alternative efforts to communicate printed matter that all other alternatives for deposit of such matter are inadequate substitutes for postal letterboxes.

Postal Service regulations, however, provide that letterboxes and other receptacles designated for the delivery of mail “shall be used exclusively for matter which bears postage.” DMM 151.2.³ Section 1725 merely reinforces this regulation by prohibiting, under pain of criminal sanctions, the deposit into a letterbox of any mailable matter on which postage has not been paid. The specific prohibition contained in § 1725 is also repeated in the Postal Service regulations at DMM 146.21.

Section 1725 was enacted in 1934 “to curb the practice of depositing statements of account, circulars, sale bills, etc., in letter boxes established and approved by the Postmaster General for the receipt or delivery of mail matter without payment of postage thereon by making this a criminal offense.” H. R. Rep. No. 709, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934). Both the Senate and House Committees on Post Offices and Post Roads explained the principal motivation for § 1725 as follows:

“Business concerns, particularly utility companies, have within the last few years adopted the practice of having their circulars, statements of account, etc., delivered by private messenger, and have used as receptacles the letter boxes erected for the purpose of holding mail matter and approved by the Post Office Department for such purpose. This practice is depriving the Post Office Department of considerable revenue on matter which would otherwise go through the mails, and at the same time is resulting in the stuffing of letter boxes with extraneous matter.” Ibid.; S. Rep. No. 742, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934).

Nothing in any of the legislation or regulations recited above requires any person to become a postal customer. Anyone is free to live in any part of the country without having letters or packages delivered or received by the Postal Service by simply failing to provide the receptacle for those letters and packages which the statutes and regulations require. Indeed, the provision for “General Delivery” in most post offices enables a person to take advantage of the fácil-ities of the Postal Service without ever having provided a receptacle at or near his premises conforming to the regulations of the Postal Service. What the legislation and regulations do require is that those persons who do wish to receive and deposit their mail at their home or business do so under the direction and control of the Postal Service.

III

As early as the last century, this Court recognized the broad power of Congress to act in matters concerning the posts:

“The power vested in Congress 'to establish post-offices and post-roads’ has been practically construed, since the foundation of the government, to authorize not merely the designation of the routes over which the mail shall be carried, and the offices where letters and other documents shall be received to be distributed or forwarded, but the carriage of the mail, and all measures necessary to secure its safe and speedy transit, and the prompt delivery of its contents. The validity of legislation describing what should be carried, and its weight and form, and the charges to which it should be subjected, has never been questioned. . .. The power possessed by Congress embraces the regulation of the entire Postal System of the country. The right to designate what shall be carried necessarily involves the right to determine what shall be excluded.” Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 732 (1878).

However broad the postal power conferred by Art. I may be, it may not of course be exercised by Congress in a manner that abridges the freedom of speech or of the press protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In this case we are confronted with the appellees’ assertion that the First Amendment guarantees them the right to deposit, without payment of postage, their notices, circulars, and flyers in letterboxes which have been accepted as authorized depositories of mail by the Postal Service.⁴

In addressing appellees’ claim, we note that we are not here confronted with a regulation which in any way prohibits individuals from going door-to-door to distribute their message or which vests unbridled discretion in a governmental official to decide whether or not to permit the distribution to occur. We are likewise not confronted with a regulation which in any way restricts the appellees’ right to use the mails. The appellees may mail their civic notices in the ordinary fashion, and the Postal Service will treat such notices identically with all other mail without regard to content. There is no claim that the Postal Service treats civic notices, because of their content, any differently from the way it treats any of the other mail it processes. Admittedly, if appellees do choose to mail their notices, they will be required to pay postage in a manner identical to other Postal Service patrons, but appellees do not challenge the imposition of a fee for the services provided by the Postal Service.⁵

What is at issue in this ease is solely the constitutionality of an Act of Congress which makes it unlawful for persons to use, without payment of a fee, a letterbox which has been designated an “authorized depository” of the mail by the Postal Service. As has been previously explained, when a letterbox is so designated, it becomes an essential part of the Postal Service's nationwide system for the delivery and receipt of mail. In effect, the postal customer, although he pays for the physical components of the “authorized depository,” agrees to abide by the Postal Service’s regulations in exchange for the Postal Service agreeing to deliver and pick up his mail.

Appellees’ claim is undermined by the fact that a letterbox, once designated an “authorized depository,” does not at the same time undergo a transformation into a “public forum” of some limited nature to which the First Amendment guarantees access to all comers. There is neither historical nor constitutional support for the characterization of a letterbox as a public forum. Letterboxes are an essential part of the nationwide system for the delivery and receipt of mail, and since 1934 access to them has been unlawful except under the terms and conditions specified by Congress and the Postal Service. As such, it is difficult to accept ap-pellees’ assertion that because it may be somewhat more efficient to place their messages in letterboxes there is a First Amendment right to do so. The underlying rationale of ap-pellees’ argument would seem to foreclose Congress or the Postal Service from requiring in the future that all letterboxes contain locks with keys being available only to the homeowner and the mail carrier. Such letterboxes are presently found in many apartment buildings, and we do not think their presence offends the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Letterboxes which lock, however, have the same effect on civic associations that wish access to them as does the enforcement of § 1725. Such letterboxes also accomplish the same purpose — that is, they protect mail revenues while at the same time facilitating the secure and efficient delivery of the mails. We do not think the First Amendment prohibits Congress from choosing to accomplish these purposes through legislation as opposed to lock and key.

Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of any reason why this Court should treat a letterbox differently for First Amendment access purposes than it has in the past treated the military base in Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828 (1976), the jail or prison in Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39 (1966), and Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Union, 433 U. S. 119 (1977), or the advertising space made available in city rapid transit cars in Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974). In all these cases, this Court recognized that the First Amendment does not guarantee access to property simply because it is owned or controlled by the government. In Greer v. Spock, supra, the Court cited approvingly from its earlier opinion in Adderley v. Florida, supra, wherein it explained that “‘[t]he State, no less than a private owner of property, has power to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated.' ” 424 U. S., at 836.⁶

This Court has not hesitated in the past to hold invalid laws which it concluded granted too much discretion to public officials as to who might and who might not solicit individual homeowners, or which too broadly inhibited the access of persons to traditional First Amendment forums such as the public streets and parks. See, e. g., Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U. S. 620 (1980); Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939); Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 (1943); Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 (1938); and Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972). But it is a giant leap from the traditional “soapbox” to the letterbox designated as an authorized depository of the United States mails, and we do not believe the First Amendment requires us to make that leap.⁷

IV

It is thus unnecessary for us to examine § 1725 in the context of a “time, place, and manner” restriction on the use of the traditional “public forums” referred to above. This Court has long recognized the validity of reasonable time, place, and manner, regulations on such a forum so long as the regulation is content-neutral, serves a significant governmental interest, and leaves open adequate alternative channels for communication. See, e. g., Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, 447 U. S. 530, 535-536 (1980) ; Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85, 93 (1977); Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748, 771 (1976); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104 (1972); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569 (1941). But since a letterbox is not traditionally such a “public forum,” the elaborate analysis engaged in by the District Court was, we think, unnecessary. To be sure, if a governmental regulation is based on the content of the speech or the message, that action must be scrutinized more carefully to ensure that communication has not been prohibited “ 'merely because public officials disapprove the speaker’s view.’ ” Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, supra, at 536, quoting Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 282 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result). But in this case there simply is no question that § 1725 does not regulate speech on the basis of content. While the analytical line between a regulation of the “time, place, and manner” in which First Amendment rights may be exercised in a traditional public forum, and the question of whether a particular piece of personal or real property owned or controlled by the government is in fact a “public forum” may blur at the edges, we think the line is nonetheless a workable one. We likewise think that Congress may, in exercising its authority to develop and operate a national postal system, properly legislate with the generality of cases in mind, and should not be put to the test of defending in one township after another the constitutionality of a statute under the traditional "time, place, and manner” analysis. This Court has previously acknowledged that the “guarantees of the First Amendment have never meant 'that people who want to propagandize protests or views have a constitutional right to do so whenever and however and wherever they please.’ ” Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S., at 836, quoting Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S., at 48. If Congress and the Postal Service are to operate as efficiently as possible a system for the delivery of mail which serves a Nation extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, from the Canadian boundary on the north to the Mexican boundary on the south, it must obviously adopt regulations of general character having uniform applicability throughout the more than three million square miles which the United States embraces. In so doing, the Postal Service’s authority to impose regulations cannot be made to depend on all of the variations of climate, population, density, and other factors that may vary significantly within a distance of less than 100 miles.

V

From the time of the issuance of the first postage stamp in this country at Brattleboro, Vt., in the fifth decade of the last century, through the days of the governmentally subsidized “Pony Express” immediately before the Civil War, and through the less admirable era of the Star Route Mail Frauds in the latter part of that century, Congress has actively exercised the authority conferred upon it by the Constitution “to establish Post Offices and Post Roads” and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” for executing this task. While Congress, no more than a suburban township, may not by its own ipse dixit destroy the “public forum” status of streets and parks which have historically been public forums, we think that for the reasons stated a letterbox may not properly be analogized to streets and parks. It is enough for our purposes that neither the enactment nor the enforcement of § 1725 was geared in any way to the content of the message sought to be placed in the letterbox. The judgment of the District Court is accordingly

Reversed.

1 On this point, a postal investigator testified that the Postal Service tries to engage in physical surveillance on the one or two days a month that large numbers of government checks are delivered. The investigator testified that without § 1725 “we would have many more people having access to the mailboxes or being in the vicinity of the mailboxes. This type of activity could hinder our surveillances in that we would not be sure if a person we see approaching a mailbox is a subject or has a legitimate reason for being there.” App. 160. The investigator also stated that the Postal Service receives “many phone calls from concerned citizens who may report that someone has been seen in the area of their mailboxes. We try to respond to that area if at all possible to determine who that individual may be.” Ibid. The Postal Service also receives assistance from local police who may be doing a similar type of surveillance and who would have “a difficult time identifying who it is exactly going into mailboxes . . . .” Id., at 161.

2 The District Court reasoned that the alternative methods suggested by the Postal Service were inadequate because they can result in the civic notices either being lost or damaged as a result of wind, rain, or snow. Weatherstripping on doors may prevent the flyers from being placed under the door. Use of plastic bags for protection of the civic notices is both time consuming and “relatively expensive for a small volunteer organization . . . ." 490 F. Supp., at 160. Deposit of materials outside may cause litter problems as well as arouse resentment among residents because it informs burglars that no one is home. Alternative methods which depend on reaching the occupant personally are less effective because their success depends on the mere chance that the person called or visited will be home at any given time. The court also found that enforcement of § 1725 against civic associations “does not appear so necessary or contributive to enforcement of the anti-theft, anti-fraud or Private Express statutes that this interest outweighs the [appellees’] substantial interest in expedient and economical communication with their constituents.” Id,., at 163. Based on the above, the District Court concluded that “the cost to free expression of imposing this burden on [appellees] outweighs the showing made by the Postal Service of its need to enforce the statute to promote effective delivery and protection of the mails.” Id., at 162.

3 There appear to be at least two minor exceptions to this regulation. DMM 156.58 provides that “publishers of newspapers regularly mailed as second-class mail may, on Sundays and national holidays only, place copies of the Sunday or holiday issues in the rural and highway contract route boxes of subscribers, with the understanding that copies will be removed from the boxes before the next day on which mail deliveries are scheduled.” This particular exception is designed to protect mail revenues by encouraging newpapers to use second-class mail for delivery of their papers. The exception allows distributors to deliver their papers in letterboxes only under certain conditions and on certain days when mail service is unavailable. A second exception to the requirement that only mail which bears postage may be placed in letterboxes is contained in DMM 156.4, which authorizes rural postal customers to leave unstamped mail in letterboxes when they also leave money for postage.

4 We reject appellees’ additional assertion raised below that 18 U. S. C. § 1725 cannot be applied to them because it was intended to bar the deposit of commercial materials only. The statute on its face bars the deposit of “any mailable matter” (emphasis added) without proper postage, and, as more fully explained by the District Court in its initial opinion rejecting this contention, the legislative history makes clear that both Congress and the Postal Service understood the statute would apply to noncommercial as well as commercial materials. 448 F. Supp., at 160-162.

5 Justice BRENNAN, concurring in the result, quotes the oft repeated aphorism of Justice Holmes, dissenting, in United States ex rel. Milwaukee Social Democratic Pub. Co. v. Burleson, 255 II. S. 407, 437 (1921), that “[t]he United States may give up the Post Office when it sees fit, but while it carries it on the use of the mails is almost as much a part of free speech as the right to use our tongues, and it would take very strong language to convince me that Congress ever intended to give such a practically despotic power to any one man.” Justice Brennan also quoted this aphorism in his opinion for the Court in Blount v. Rizzi, 400 U. S. 410, 416 (1971), a case dealing with the Postmaster General’s authority to prevent distributions of obscene matter, which has little if any relation to the present case because no one contends that appellees’ circulars are obscene. Justice BreNNAN, however, does not refer to the dissenting opinion of Justice Brandeis in Burleson (with respect to which Justice Holmes said “I agree in substance with his view.” 255 U. S., at 436). There, Justice Brandéis goes into a more detailed analysis of the relationship of the mails to the prohibitions of the First Amendment, and states:

“The Government might, of course, decline altogether to distribute newspapers; or it might decline to carry any at less than the cost of service; and it would not thereby abridge the freedom of the press, since to all papers other means of transportation would be left open.” Id,., at 431.

It seems to us that that is just what the Postal Service here has done: it has by no means declined to distribute the leaflets which appellees seek to have deposited in mailboxes, but has simply insisted that the appellees pay the same postage that any other circular in its class would have to bear. Thus, neither the dissent of Justice Brandeis nor of Justice Holmes in Burleson supports Justice Brennan’s position.

6 Justice Brennan argues that a letterbox is a public forum because “the mere deposit of mailable matter without postage is not ‘basically incompatible’ with the ‘normal activity’ for which a letterbox is used, i. e., deposit of mailable matter with proper postage or mail delivery by the Postal Service. On the contrary, the mails and the letterbox are specifically used for the communication of information ahd ideas, and thus surely constitute a public forum appropriate for the exercise of First Amendment rights subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions such as those embodied in § 1725 . . . .” Post, at 137-138.

Justice Brennan’s analysis assumes that simply because an instrumentality “is used for the communication of ideas or information,” it thereby becomes a public forum. Our eases provide no support for such a sweeping proposition. Certainly, a bulletin board in a cafeteria at Fort Dix is “specifically used for the communication of information and ideas,” but such a bulletin board is no more a “public forum” than are the street comers and parking lots found not to be so at the same military base. Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828 (1976). Likewise, the advertising space made available in public transportation in the city of Shaker Heights is “specifically used for the communication of information and ideas,” but that fact alone was not sufficient to transform that space into a “public forum” for First Amendment purposes. Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974). In fact, Justice Blackmun recognized in Lehman that:

“Were we to hold to the contrary, display cases in public hospitals, libraries, office buildings, military compounds, and other public facilities immediately would become Hyde Parks open to every would-be pamphleteer and politician. This the Constitution does not require.” Id., at 304.

For the reasons we have stated at length in our opinion, we think the appellees’ First Amendment activities are wholly incompatible with the maintenance of a nationwide system for the safe and efficient delivery of mail. The history of the postal system and the role the letterbox serves within that system supports this conclusion, and even Justice BreNNAN acknowledges that a “significant governmental interest” is advanced by the restriction imposed by § 1725. Post, at 135.

7 Justice Makshall in his dissent, post, at 143, states that he disagrees “with the Court’s assumption that if no public forum is involved, the only First Amendment challenges to be considered are whether the regulation is content-based . . . and reasonable The First Amendment prohibits Congress from “abridging freedom of speech, or of the press,” and its ramifications are not confined to the “public forum” first noted in Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939). What we hold is the principle reiterated by cases such as Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39 (1966), and Greer v. Spook, supra, that property owned or controlled by the government which is not a public forum may be subject to a prohibition of speech, leafleting, picketing, or other forms of communication without running afoul of the First Amendment. Admittedly, the government must act reasonably in imposing such restrictions, Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Union, 433 U. S. 119, 130-131 (1977), and the prohibition must be content-neutral. But, for the reasons stated in our opinion, we think it cannot be questioned that § 1725 is both a reasonable and contentrneutral regulation.

Even Justice Marshall’s dissent recognizes that the Government may defend the regulation here on a ground other than simply a “time, place, and manner” basis. For example, he says in dissent, post, at 143: “The question, then, is whether this statute burdens any First Amendment rights enjoyed by appellees. If so, it must be determined whether this burden is justified by a significant governmental interest substantially advanced by the statute.” We think § 1725 satisfies even the test articulated by Justice Marshall.