Shamelessly stolen from another FReeper
Posted on 03/24/2006 10:00:27 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Edited on 03/24/2006 10:20:15 PM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Internet's freewheeling days as a place exempt from the heavy hand of federal election laws are about to end.
Late Friday, the Federal Election Commission released a 96-page volume of Internet regulations that have been anticipated for more than a year and represent the government's most extensive foray yet into describing how bloggers and Web sites must abide by election law restrictions.
The rules (click here for PDF) say that paid Web advertising, including banner ads and sponsored links on search engines, will be regulated like political advertising in other types of media. They also say bloggers can enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech.
If the regulations are approved by the FEC at its meeting on Monday, they will represent a substantial change from a far more aggressive version of the regulations seen by CNET News.com last year. An outcry from bloggers and even members of Congress appears to have caused FEC lawyers--who are under court order to regulate the Internet--to rethink the rules and adopt a more laissez-faire approach.
Though not all the implications of the 96-page document were immediately clear, one prominent advocate of Internet free speech said the rules are preferable over what could have happened.
"They've tried to take a light hand, and it looks like they might have succeeded," Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman who teaches law at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, said in a telephone interview. Smith said, though, that he was not able to review the document in detail.
Also exempted from the sweep of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act--better known as the McCain-Feingold law--are e-mail messages sent to 500 or fewer people, posting a video unless it's a paid advertisement, and online activities done by volunteers even if the actions are undertaken without the knowledge of the campaign...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com
Aye, it does. And it will be a looming threat to our liberty until the Roberts Court tosses it out.
If Republican Bush had of vetoed Republican McCain's proposal (which passed the Republican House), we wouldn't even be discussing this.
McCain & Feingold and their hired guns will be in court before the ink is dry on this reg from the FEC. Whatever comes from those two morons will be on the fast track of appeal to the USSC. Then the Roberts court can kill CFR with Article 1.
Shamelessly stolen from another FReeper
not sure
Maybe I'm giving the FEC too much credit for deviousnes, but I half suspect that they publicized the original proposals with the intention of scaling them back so we'd all feel relief and acceptance for regs that are unconstitutional and shouldn't exist. Hence the, "not as bad as we thought" reactions were planned from the get go.
He'll use the veto when my wife says she wants me to get a 25 YO girlfriend and have her move in with us.
Any government regulations of my thoughts and the free expression of them are unacceptable to me. McCain, Feingold, you and those who have signed on to what you have done here, are not fit to hold public office.
The FEC's internal deliberations are taking place against an unusual backdrop of congressional action. Bloggers of all political stripes, many politicians and even FEC Chairman Michael Toner have thrown their support behind a proposal in Congress that would amend current law and largely immunize the Internet from election law.
So if the chairman of the SEC doesn't want the internet to have the CFR stuff up our bums, who then?
An effort to do just that was defeated by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives last November. In a second attempt to enact the same proposal, a House panel this month approved the bill again, but the release of the FEC rules could delay it indefinitely. (A similar measure is pending in the Senate.)
Whaddaya know, congressional Democrats, what a surprise!
The three Republican commissioners--including Smith, who's now a law professor--had wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But because they couldn't get even one of the three Democrats to go along with them and give them a majority, that didn't happen and the FEC began the current proceeding.
And FEC democrats block their Republican counterparts from appealing, in stark contrast to the FEC Chairman's wishes! Who woulda thunk....?
Critics of a broad exemption--including the New York Times editorial board--say that excluding all Internet communications is a recipe for corruption, giving candidates the green light to coordinate unfettered soft-money online spending with corporations, labor unions and wealthy donors
Ah, The New York Times, champion of free speech as long as it's their's and their's alone, and you have to pay a subscription to read it. Cute how they included unions in there in an attempt to appear balaced, everyone in a union knows the only way to find out how the union bosses want you to vote is on the internet, right? And those union blogs, so concerned with which party their members want their dues money spent on...
How ironic, or coincidental, really, that such starkly partisan Democrat and MSM favored regs are being pushed by a Rino who came very close to running for VP on a Democrat ticket on the most recent contest.
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Thanks for the ping!
So would I.
"So would I."
Not me. What parts of the 1st and 4th amendments should we so freely set aside? The government has no constitutional authority to regulate free speech nor to demand disclosure of the names or personal information from citizens without due process and probable cause. Freely donating to or otherwise supporting candidates/issues of choice is not probable cause nor is it a corrupting influence on government. It's simply FREEDOM!
I'm still not liking this too much. If McCain manages to get a bill passes making internet communication prior to elections "illegal" won't the FCC have to follow that law?
At least until the USSC slaps his WAY to big of head around?
Even a light hand, wielding a whip, is not to be born
by free men.
Like they say, it's the camel's nose into the tent.
Signing this monstrosity was Bushes biggest mistake. It's pretty hard to forgive.
L
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