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.
