Posted on 11/17/2005 8:10:58 PM PST by Milhous
As if the rest of us don't have exactly the same rights. "The Press" is anyone with, well, a press. The modern version of the old Broadsides that fueled the American Revolution is the internet, including the web, email, and other electronic information sharing services. Dan Blather has no more rights that the folks at "Little Green Footballs", or of course, any poster on FR and even those "other guys" over at DU.
What makes you think FR has any lawyers, other than the lawyers who are also FReepers?
Sure! It will become a famous painting, "Nude With Tie."
The left wanted to silence the blogs but had no problem with the politicking of the GeorgeBush ripoff site (which routinely mimicked the official Bush election graphics) which I believe even did campaign fundraising.
They didn't seem to mind the foreign produced ads for MoveOn.com (illegal contribution to the campaign) either.
2004 has shown us that from now on the world will be trying to seriously impact the US election for President.
Why would it? There is no fairness doctrine anymore.
I agree this is a very positive development. At the Federalist Society Convention last week, there was a very good panel discussion on the press exemption, and specifically on whether blogs came under it.
For the reformers, any residual rights of free expression are loopholes that undermine the enforcement scheme, so they are against such broad exemptions. We'll see if this holds up on appeal.
Regards,
Considering Firedup America is a blog put together by Missouri's former Democrat senator and her supporters, I'm a bit suspicious of how or why all of this came about. For some reason, I don't trust Democrats, even if they might be right.
Although many of us spend a lot of our time criticizing bureaucrats, we really owe the FEC kudos in this case. They've doing their level best to protect free speech and the First Amendment throughout this entire affair and have tenaciously fought McCain and the courts in the cause of freedom.
Give them a lot of credit. They've been fighting McCain and the courts all along in this area. This decision follows one where a court and McCain were trying to force them to regulate blogs and the Internet. In this case they're the champions of freedom and we should congratulate them. When a Federal agency doe the right thing, we should give them credit for it.
Amazing!
Thank you.
Go Dubya. This would not have happened in the Clinton era.
To add some background for this ruling. FR thread: The coming crackdown on blogging
-snip- "...In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. "The commission's exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines" the campaign finance law's purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote...
...CNET News.com spoke with Smith about the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold law, and its forthcoming extrusion onto the Internet...
Senators McCain and Feingold have argued that we have to regulate the Internet, that we have to regulate e-mail. They sued us in court over this and they won...
...Why should Salon or Slate get an exemption? Should Nytimes.com and Opinionjournal.com get an exemption but not online sites, just because the newspapers have a print edition as well?...
-end snip-
If this turns out to be the final ruling, then I want Press Credentials. I want a Press Pass that I can use to get past yellow tape at crime scenes, and into government locations as only the Press can.
If we are journalists, then we're protected by all the laws that protect journalists.
This might be fun.
Thank you for the reminder, I sent mine out to be polished! :)
The article's headline should read "FEC Grants Free Speech - Declares Itself God"
Isn't it wonderful that our government allows us this freedom?
What Mcclellan should do now is kick out 2 of the 3 network hacks and replace them with right oriented MSM attacking blogs.
Whenever Gregory or Moran do their stupidity these right wing bloggers should be there to make them like the fools that they truly are.
And get rid of that old hag Thomas.
"What makes you think FR has any lawyers, other than the lawyers who are also FReepers?"
What makes YOU think I was implying otherwise? I know that JimRob/FR had representation in the various fair use witchhunts, and that it was probably gratis by a few attorneys here. When I say FR's lawyers, this is who I mean.
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