Reno v. Condon

In Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141, 120 S.Ct. 666, 145 L.Ed.2d 587 (2000), the Supreme Court held that the Federal Government may "regulate state activities" so long as it does not "seek to control or influence the manner in which States regulate private parties." Id. at 150, 120 S.Ct. 666 (quoting South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U.S. 505, 514-15, 108 S.Ct. 1355, 99 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988)). The Court upheld the constitutionality of the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994, 18 U.S.C. 2721-2725 ("DPPA"), which restricted the ability of States to disclose the personal information in their motor vehicle databases without the driver's consent. Id. at 143-44, 120 S.Ct. 666. The Court concluded that the DPPA did not violate the Tenth Amendment because it "did not require the States in their sovereign capacity to regulate their own citizens." Id. at 151, 120 S.Ct. 666. Instead, "the DPPA regulated the States as the owners of data bases." Id. The Court also held that, because the DPPA's regulation of state activity was constitutional, the fact that compliance with the statute required legislative or administrative action on the part of the States was immaterial. Condon, 528 U.S. at 150-51, 120 S.Ct. 666 ("Any federal regulation demands compliance. That a State wishing to engage in certain activity must take administrative and sometimes legislative action to comply with federal standards regulating that activity is a commonplace that presents no constitutional defect." (quoting Baker, 485 U.S. at 514-15, 108 S.Ct. 1355)).