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.

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?

NO RULES FOR FREE SPEECH!

Address your e-mail to “Mr. Brad C. Deutsch, Assistant General Counsel.” Be sure to include your name and postal address.

“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.

Not to be paranoid or anything.
James Miller over at Tech Central Station has a round up of the tools that the MSM and the Government can use to keep bloggers from disrupting  their fiefdom.
As bloggers, we must be constantly wary as we are d…

My first response upon heaing of this mess was, what are we gonna be China now?

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.

“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.