Posted on 03/23/2005 1:14:28 PM PST by ZeitgeistSurfer
As federal election commissioners struggle for last-minute consensus on proposed rules for applying campaign-finance law to the Internet, some civil-liberties groups and election-finance watchdogs optimistically predict limited regulation.
At press time, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) still had not released its draft rules on public communication and generic campaign activity. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Thursday, and the FEC usually releases its proposals ahead of time.
"It's a complicated document," an FEC source said. Typically, commissioners try to resolve their differences before hearings for such politically charged issues, the source added.
At issue is to what extent Internet-based campaign communication falls under disclosure rules established under a 2002 campaign-finance law. The FEC originally exempted all Internet communication from the law, which limits previously unregulated "soft money" contributions to political parties, but was rebuffed by a federal court that ruled the loophole was too large and must be closed.
In the meantime, public statements by one FEC commissioner raising the specter of regulations on Web logs, or blogs, that support specific candidates has stoked the controversy.
"Free speech is at stake," said Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The Internet allows anybody to be a town crier."
The worst-case scenario, Johnson said, is that the FEC could chill free expression by setting a monetary value on campaign-related blog activity and requiring onerous disclosure filings.
But FEC Chairman Scott Thomas last week attempted to publicly reassure the Internet community that the commission is not gunning for individual bloggers.
"I doubt there will be any interest in treating what individuals do on their home computers as a coordinated communication," he said in a speech. "There is a very clear statutory exception for home volunteer activity, and the FEC has applied that consistently for several years now."
Rather, he said the commission is likely to focus on Internet political advertising paid for by campaigns and unions.
"We are cautiously optimistic that the FEC will focus on its mandate -- large expenditures of money," said John Morris, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.
Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, agreed: "I don't think they are going to target bloggers with no connection to a campaign."
Key lawmakers are pushing the FEC to regulate some Internet-related campaign activity. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., pressed the FEC to get the job done in a Tuesday letter to Thomas. The four were the principal authors of the 2002 law.
But like Thomas, they also are trying to reassure bloggers that any regulation will be limited. Feingold even posted his thoughts on the MyDD blog, where he chastised the FEC for "shamefully poor and often deliberately harmful interpretations" of the statute and warned that the agency "must tread carefully in the area of political communication on the Internet."
Wrong!! That's doubleplusungoodfeeling. The first amendment protects pornography for the proles. That was the founding big brothers intent. That was always their intent.
No, they're gunning for all of them.
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