If you haven’t been paying attention, there have been rumblings of a crackdown on free political speech on the internet. It must be the U.N., you think to yourself. Not in this case – this time it’s our beloved Federal legislators, using the congressional abortion that is McCain/Feingold to crack down on blogs that include political content.
From
CNet: Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.
In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign’s Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate’s press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.
Smith should know. He’s one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.
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.
Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But because they couldn’t get the three Democrats to go along with them, what Smith describes as a “bizarre” regulatory process now is under way.
The impotent GOP and the politically correct Donks are teaming up to devise ways to shut bloggers up.
This is just another reason why there isn’t a lick of difference between the two parties. They’re primary and only true interest is preserving the corrupt pot-o-gold provided by our Federal cabal.
Not being a culture that waits for the jackbooted Federal thugs to come knocking on the door, a bipartisan blogosphere collective has created The Online Coalition, “from left to right to preserve our rights”.
Whether you’re a blogger or not, you should go and sign the letter to the Chairman of the FEC at the Online Coalition. I signed it (I’m #40) and you should too, if you have any interest in free speech remaining free on the internet. Plenty of bloggers and other media types have signed it – the Online Coalition lists the signatories, and the list includes folks from all over the political spectrum.
From the letter:
The Internet is a fundamental tool in the American political process. Just this week, we learned that 75 million Americans used the Internet to gather news, read commentary, discuss issues, register to vote, and generally join in the democratic process during the last election cycle. We believe the Internet is the primary driving force behind increased participation among traditionally under-represented groups of voters, and we applaud the Federal Election Committee for crafting rules that have allowed the Internet to flourish as a political communications medium.
Like the town hall meeting, online political activism is a vital part of American civic life. We encourage the FEC to provide bloggers, online journalists, and everyday cyber-citizens with the same freedoms that individuals and traditional journalists are free to exercise elsewhere. The Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 was intended to prevent unlimited soft money contributions and regulate electioneering advertising, not to stifle free speech or grassroots activities on the Internet that serve the common good.
Get involved.
