How appropriate that I chose to invoke the First Amendment (see post below) on the very day the Federal Election Commission (FEC) held a hearing on regulation of the Internet. You may recall that a few weeks ago FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith warned us that the FEC was considering applying campaign finance reform laws to “online political activity,” including political writing in the blogosphere.
The result was a blog swarm that united liberal and conservative bloggers (Also see this post). This unity led to the drafting of a bipartisan online petition, which has been signed by 3,239 people at this writing. The opinion storm got the attention of cable and broadcast news networks.
Yesterday FEC commissioners discussed how far to extend its burdensome regulations. According to the AP:
The Federal Election Commission took its first step Thursday in extending campaign finance controls to political activity on the Internet, asking for public input on limited regulations for the freewheeling medium.Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who took the lead on drafting proposals with vice chairman Michael Toner, described the steps as “restrained.” The commission emphasized a hands-off approach to bloggers, or authors of Web logs, among the loudest and unruliest voices online.
“We are not the speech police,” said Weintraub, a Democrat. “The FEC does not tell private citizens what they can or cannot say, on the Internet, or elsewhere.
That’s the kind of Democrat I like. We have the same interest in protecting each other’s right to express ourselves.
Once again I’m a bit late on this, but other bloggers are on top of things. Kevin of Wizbang writes: “The Federal Election Commission held hearings on their proposed rules for the application of campaign finance rules to blogs and websites. Even with the rules currently being discussed group sites like Wizbang, The Volokh Conspiracy, and thousands of others might not be exempt. Incorporated sites like DailyKos, Gawker Media, RedState, RawStory, etc. would have to qualify for a government cleared media exemption on case-by-case basis.”
RedState has a whole section dedicated to FEC news, and Winfield Myers at the Democracy Project has a series of informative posts (also see Michelle Malkin, Polipundit and ThoughtsOnline).
A site called Personal Democracy Forum has been doing an admirable job (via Richard Hasen) analyzing the draft regulations and asking some intriguing questions: Hasen writes:
[T]he greater danger of the FEC’s proposals, if enacted as they are, is the additional uncertainty that they would create. For example, consider someone who has a private website or blog that contains occasional political commentary. Suppose the blogger owns the site as a corporation. Corporations cannot engage in certain election-related activities except through a separate political action committee subject to numerous reporting and disclosure requirements. Can the blogger post commentaries calling for the election or defeat of a candidate for President? The draft rules extend the media exemption to news stories, commentaries and editorials appearing over the Internet, but written materials in this category must appear in a “newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication.” It is not clear that a blogger fits into this category, particularly if the blogger does not post regularly.
Regarding the media exemption to the FEC’s regulations, it’s arguable that blogs are media. According to the Library of Congress’s definition of serial publications (print or non-print publications issued in parts, usually bearing issue numbers and/or dates), blogs are indeed serial publications, just like magazines, newspapers, etc. If that’s the case, blogs should be exempt from regulation. The freedom of the press could easily extend to us.
Let’s say I really do qualify as a “blogosphere reporter” for MSNBC and drop the quotation marks. As someone reporting news, I am a member of the press, right? What I report on MSNBC would be considered news. In the same vein, my blog is a news column, where I generate reports for MSNBC and my audience. Along with any straight reporting I may do, I may also write editorials in support of a political candidate.
I could be extending this too far, but I wanted you to see the problems arising out of any regulation of the blogosphere. Some bloggers consider themselves hobbyists; others call themselves “the media.” I don’t think a government bureaucrat is qualified to make the call. Bloggers shouldn’t have to worry about any of this stuff in the first place. The FEC needs to keep its unwanted groping hands off.
America’s great selling point is freedom of expression. I implore the government not to play communist dictator and start controlling something as free-flowing, creative and expansive as the Internet. Let it continue to shape-shift and flourish unimpeded. Those with evil intent will make it harder on the rest of us, but the unencumbered exchange of ideas is priceless.
The power of the Internet is the same kind that propelled adventurers and risk-takers to experiment, create and fight for something magnificent: the United States of America.
{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 13 comments }
I would have to agree…The FEC needs to back down.
LaShawn wrote:
“it’s arguable that blogs are media. According to the Library of Congress’s definition of serial publications (print or non-print publications issued in parts, usually bearing issue numbers and/or dates), blogs are indeed serial publications, just like magazines, newspapers, etc. If that’s the case, blogs should be exempt from regulation. The freedom of the press could easily extend to us.”
…
Ever since the FCC started down this path, I have wondered if the best way to defeat McCain-Feingold would be to place blogs and newspapers on an even footing. But I looked at it from the opposite way — if blogs could be regulated, then we would also have to regulate the websites of newspapers. Both are internet media, and both contain personal opinions (newspaper op-eds, for example) about candidates that could persuade voters.
In that case, newspapers would be left in a difficult position: fight for the freedom of the internet, or censor/delete content from their websites. They couldn’t do the latter, since they probably get at least 3x the number of article reads online than they do in print (I’m just guessing at that number, but it has to be substantially larger, espically with a Drudge link or an Instalanche.)
Anyway, just food for thought.
Witht the verbage some people could judge that you have violated ethics or acted illegally in the future just as they are judging that Maggie Gallegher acted illegally.
And guess what La Shawn? I’ll be right here defending you from those judgemental people who like to concern themselves with incorrect facts, making judgments of others that are incorrect.
I can tell La Shawn that you are trying to do the right thing and I just think the FEC should allow people to write.
For goodness sake, the dominant media can get story after story wrong for long periods of time. I relay the 1995 example where ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN reported for 5 MONTHS straight that Republicans were cutting Medicare by $270 billion. Yet Republicans were increasing Medicare by 7% per year for 7 years (for more than a 49% compounded increase).
But that one example isn’t the exception. The domainant media gets things wrong (almost purposely) every day. On topic after topic they use the same old sources for information (like Jesse Jackson instead of Jesse Peterson or NOW instead of Concerned Women for America).
Blogs ARE the checks and balances on the old media who had no watchdogs other than talk radio (but talk radio is less decentralized). Blogs allow for a much more streamlined FLOW of information without anyone being able to claim conspiracy or reading the daily fax from whomever.
I’m ready to spend time in jail for voicing my opinions should they proceed with this ill advised action. I wonder how that will look, in the land of the free and the home of the brave a mother of three is sent to prison for expressing her opinions in the wrong medium.
I know quite a few Chinese people. One of them told me that when she had to do research in China, she couldn’t find anything worthwhile because a lot of sites were blocked. This is not theory, it’s reality.
all the w’s dot dinocrat.com writes about this subject I pasted below
——————–
Needed: a center-right wire service
Filed under: General, War, New Media, Mainstream Media, business — Jack Risko @ 10:04 am on 3/19/2005
We all feel pretty much the same way when we read the tired, lazy misstatements of the AP and Reuters. You know, things like the nutty claim that 100,000 Iraqis were killed by the US (see The Age of Unreason for an update). Or this from Reuters:
Virtually no one disagrees human activity is fueling global warming, and a global treaty signed in Kyoto, Japan, aims to reduce polluting emissions. But the world’s biggest polluter, the United States, has withdrawn from the 1997 treaty, saying its provisions would hurt the U.S. economy.
Meehl’s team ran two computer simulations of climate change – complex programs, he said, that took months to run on supercomputers. Those models included as many variables as the researchers could think of, such as human carbon emissions, other pollution, current temperatures and their rate of change, emissions from volcanoes, changes in solar radiation and shifts in the ozone layer.
Comments: (a) there are plenty of people who disagree; and (b) the US did not withdraw from the treaty – the Senate never ratified it.
And how about the AP, about whose bias we’ve written any number of articles. Care for a friendly profile of Ward Churchill, who “won’t back down?” Or how about an article on ANWR which falsely portrays the state’s enthusiasm about drilling as merely an “official” reaction, while the people are skeptical or worse.
As we have said repeatedly, the lazy and biased reporting from the Old Media will continue as long as they are around, since they believe they see things objectively, and it is we who are off our nut. One Tamara Baker, author of such gems as Bush May Be Planting WMDs in Iraq and Humiliated Corporate-Whore Press Seeks To Trash Watchdog Web Site, sums up matters for us in a Star-Tribune op-ed quoted by Powerline:
David Brock, a former conservative activist who now runs a media-watchdog group called Media Matters for America, agrees with Franke-Ruta that Republicans’ ultimate aim is the destruction of all objective reporting, so that they can say whatever they want, true or not, and get away with it: “Their explicit goal is to get us to the point where there are blue [state] facts and red [state] facts.”
In other words, Republicans for decades have wanted to control the press much as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler did, by attacking and attempting to discredit independent journalism, and for them blogs are just the latest tool in their war. That’s definitely newsworthy, but outside of the blogosphere, few publications will dare state this.
Leaving aside the violation of Godwin’s Law, Baker’s analysis has much to recommend it. One of the functions filled by the blogosphere is that of a center-right Associated Press, as we have said previously. Now it is perhaps time to go a step further: maybe there is a way to actually make money by crafting an alternative to the AP and Reuters which uses the prodigious talents of the blogosphere.
I’m not sure yet, but it is certainly worthy of some real study. The market need is there and isn’t going away.
MJ,
My first response upon heaing of this mess was, what are we gonna be China now?
RedState.org writes:
————————
Further, the FEC draft rule takes the position that the general exemption is bad – it should be removed, and replaced with very specific exceptions and protections with I think all will agree are meager at best.
“Accordingly, the Commission proposes to change the definition of “public communication” in 11 CFR 100.26 by removing the categorical exclusion for all Internet communications and by replacing it with carefully tailored exclusions for certain types of Internet communications that are distributed or made available to specific audiences that do not constitute the public at large.” (Pg 14, line 17)
I wish I could say that was the end of the disaster which is this draft, but we’re only getting started. In attempting to rationalize a bizarre requirement that emails to more than 500 people ought to trigger some additional regulatory scheme, the authors stretch far out of cyberspace – to a phone bank, and use it as an excuse to regulate some more.
“Based on this Congressionally established threshold for two types of general public political advertising [ed - mass mailing and telephone banks], the Commission proposes to revise the definition of “public communication” in 11 CFR 100.26(a) to include any communication over the Internet by means of mail, text, or voice messages where the communication consists of more than 500 messages of an identical or substantively similar nature transmitted within any 30-day period.” (Pg 16, line 3)
Mail, text, or voice messages? I’d say that would handily include 1) any set of daily digest emails from a Scoop-powered blog, 2) text? Seems to be anything, and 3) goodbye podcasting.
And if we haven’t been clear enough – the next two highlights are even more damning – because they get a whole lot closer and a whole lot more specific about the web.
“3. Websites
The proposed rules in new paragraph (a) of section 100.26 would establish a general rule that websites are a form of “public communication” because of their availability to the general public. 2 U.S.C. 431(22). However, proposed paragraph (b)(1) of this section would specifically exclude password-protected websites accessible by not more than 500 persons within any 30-day period. The limited availability of these websites distinguishes them from websites available to the general public.” (Pg 18, line 19)
That’s their general operating principle in black and white. Available to the public? Bad, and must be regulated. Private, with no real impact – well, dear subjects, you’re free to do whatever you’d like in this little sandbox we’ve provided.
The FEC is soliciting comments on its proposed “rules.” Please write to the FEC at internet@fec.gov.
Address your e-mail to “Mr. Brad C. Deutsch, Assistant General Counsel.” Be sure to include your name and postal address.
Billy Bob Clinton took hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from the Red Chinese Army in 1996 and we heard nary a peep from the FEC. In a matter of weeks after passage Democrat Lawyers had made a joke out of the campaign finance reform law last time around. Why should anyone be afraid of the clowns on the FEC now? They are a bunch of career bureaucrats whose only talent is enhancing and protecting their federal pension benefits.
“The FEC is soliciting comments on its proposed rules”…The Bill of Rights says they have NO authority to do so. If enough people send suggested rules, that is legitimizing this 1st Amendment hijack in the first place!
NO RULES FOR FREE SPEECH!
all the w’s dot alphapatriot.com writes:
————————–
FEC and MSM: Scary Scenario
I spoke with Tony (yes, I am actually friends with a flaming liberal) on the subject of the FEC and the upcoming rulings on blogs (see next post).
Tony indicated that he didn’t think it would go anywhere because there would be no way to regulate it. “What are you going to do, sue 30,000 people?”
I give you the RIAA.
Imagine if law was passed that restricted political speech on the internet. CBS gets pummeled by PoliPundit and RatherBiased.com? Guess who gets sued?
Imagine the effect if MSM and thier liberal cohorts sue just one or two top bloggers. Perhaps some conservative retaliates against DK or even DU.
Bloggers would abandon ship in droves. I can’t afford to take on the deep pockets of the NY Times. Can you?
We are not the speech police,” said Weintraub, a Democrat. “The FEC does not tell private citizens what they can or cannot say, on the Internet, or elsewhere.
Of course it does, via McCain-Feingold. And all those 527s like the Swifties who managed to evade bans against free speech before the election are about to be told what they cannot say as well.
Patterico is right. Don’t congratulate the FEC for imposing restrained controls. Weintraub deserves no congratulations.
Comments on this entry are closed.