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PUBLIC DOCUMENT-TRADE SECRET DATA HAS BEEN EXCISED Comcast of Minnesota Page 16 facing cable operators, and warned that "the current operation of the franchising process ... contravenes the statutory imperative to foster competition in the multichannel video programming distribution ("MVPD") market."23 Specific demands by the NSCC Staff that violate these 621 Orders are noted throughout this application. Above all, under the criteria set forth under the Cable Act, caselaw, and FCC orders, Comcast's application should clearly be accepted for renewal, and Comcast will assert and preserve all procedural and substantive protections under the Cable Act, the U.S. and Minnesota Constitution, and all other applicable law throughout this process. B. The RFRP includes many unsupported, unnecessary, and unconstitutionally burdensome demands. As a cable and media provider, Comcast is a First Amendment speaker entitled to the protection afforded members of the press and other participants in the marketplace of ideas.z� Article 1, section 3 of the Minnesota Constitution provides similar speech protection under state law. The United States Supreme Court has held that demands made by a governmental body that condition a cable provider's right to engage in speech must meet the standards set forth in United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377 (1968).25 The First Amendment and the O'Brien decision require the government to show — for regulations that place incidental restraints on the non- communicative aspects of speech—that the regulation furthers an important or substantial government interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression 621(a)(1) of the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 as amended by the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, 22 FCC Rcd 19633, ¶¶12- 15 ("Second 621 Order"). 23. 621 Order ¶¶ 2- 3. 24. E.g., Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 636 (1994) ("There can be no disagreement on an initial premise: Cable programmers and cable operators engage in and transmit speech, and they are entitled to the protection of the speech and press provisions of the First Amendment."); Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. 439, 444 (1991) (cable television "is engaged in 'speech' under the First Amendment, and is, in much of its operation, part of the 'press"'); City of Los Angeles v. Preferred Comms., Inc., 476 U.S. 488, 494 (1986) ("Cable television partakes of some of the aspects of speech and the communication of ideas as do the traditional enterprises of newspaper and book publishers, public speakers, and pamphleteers."). 25. Turner, 512 U.S. at 662; Preferred Comms., 476 U.S. at 495.