for the court rejected O'Brien's argument that the 1965 amendment to § 462(b)(3) was only passed to stifle the speech of anti-war protesters. The law did not restrict speech on its face, but instead only addressed conduct that was not necessarily expressive, and applied without regard to whether the draft card was destroyed in private or before an audience. It also did not matter to the court if Congress had passed it with the intention of stifling protest, as long as it could be justified on another basis; Chief Justice Warren declared that "this Court will not strike down an otherwise constitutional statute on the basis of an alleged illicit legislative motive". Despite finding that § 462(b)(3) only prohibited conduct, the court continued its First Amendment inquiry to determine whether the rule was unduly restrictive of the element of O'Brien's conduct that was expressive. The court plainly questioned whether this communicative element was "sufficient to bring into play the First Amendment" in O'Brien's case. Nevertheless, Justice Harlan, in his concurring opinion, recognized this as the "crux" of the court's decision. Warren wrote that when a regulation prohibits conduct that combines "speech" and "nonspeech" elements, "a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms". The regulation must be within the constitutional power of the government to enact, further an important or substantial government interest, that interest must be unrelated to the suppression of speech (or "content neutral", as later cases have phrased it), and prohibit no more speech than is essential to further that interest. The court ruled that § 462(b)(3) satisfied this test. First, the law was, to the court, unquestionably within the "broad and sweeping" constitutional powers of Congress under Article I to "raise and support armies" by "classify[ing] and conscript[ing] manpower for military service". Under the second prong of the test, the issuance of registration certificates was regarded as a "legitimate and substantial administrative aid" in the functioning of the draft system, as were laws that insured the "continuing availability" of issued draft cards. The court rejected O'Brien's characterization of the draft cards as nothing more than a superfluous notification of registration. Instead, the cards advanced "the smooth and proper functioning of the system" through functions such as providing proof of registration, facilitating contact between the registrant and draft board, reminding the registrant of the need to notify the