ABSTRACT
The least-restrictive-means test is a standard developed by the courts to determine whether legislation violates fundamental rights, especially freedom of speech and press, as guaranteed by the US Constitution and as applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The employment of the least-restrictive-means test is an attempt to respect the imposition of valid governmental interests but to prevent undue intrusion on individual liberties. If the government seeks to limit a fundamental constitutional right, it must do so in the least drastic manner available. The least-restrictive-means test is closely related to the void-for-vagueness test and the overbreadth doctrine, the latter in particular. The overbreadth doctrine and least-restrictive-means test seek to ensure that regulations come as close as possible to meeting government's objectives while exerting the minimum impact on the constitutional right in question. Critics argue that the least-restrictive-means test is highly subjective and open to an arbitrary, unstructured imposition of personal values.
