A CNET interview with FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith reveals the next step in statist censorship “campaign finance reform:”

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.

[...]

The judge’s decision is in no way limited to ads. She says that any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum. The problem with coordinated activity over the Internet is that it will strike, as a minimum, Internet reporting services.

They’re exempt from regulation only because of the press exemption. But people have been arguing that the Internet doesn’t fit under the press exemption. It becomes a really complex issue that would strike deep into the heart of the Internet and the bloggers who are writing out there today.

[...]

It’s going to be a battle, and if nobody in Congress is willing to stand up and say, “Keep your hands off of this, and we’ll change the statute to make it clear,” then I think grassroots Internet activity is in danger. The impact would affect e-mail lists, especially if there’s any sense that they’re done in coordination with the campaign. If I forward something from the campaign to my personal list of several hundred people, which is a great grassroots activity, that’s what we’re talking about having to look at.

Senators McCain and Feingold have argued that we have to regulate the Internet, that we have to regulate e-mail. They sued us in court over this and they won.

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We’re talking about any decision by an individual to put a link (to a political candidate) on their home page, set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet.

Again, blogging could also get us into issues about online journals and non-online journals. Why should CNET get an exemption but not an informal blog? Why should Salon or Slate get an exemption? Should Nytimes.com and Opinionjournal.com get an exemption but not online sites, just because the newspapers have a print edition as well?

…the statute refers to periodicals or broadcast, and it’s not clear the Internet is either of those…

…there’s no standard for being a blogger, anyone can claim to be one, and we’re back to the deregulated Internet that the judge objected to. Also I think some of my colleagues on the commission would be uncomfortable with that kind of blanket exemption.

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This is an incredible thicket. If someone else doesn’t take action, for instance in Congress, we’re running a real possibility of serious Internet regulation. It’s going to be bizarre.

Bizarre, and wholly unacceptable. This is outrageous.

If there’s one thing the blogosphere can agree on — right, left, and everything in between — it ought to be this. The idea that my linking to a statement on the Bush or Kerry site counts as a “contribution” is patently ridiculous. And it Smith’s right, we could fast reach the point where the only people allowed to express their opinions about politics in print without FEC scrutiny are hard-copy newspapers and magazines.

Congress needs to act. Now. As Smith notes, now is the best time for this to happen. If one side or the other begins to scratch out an advantage, this will quickly become a highly partisan issue. The idea that bloggers and web writers — who in many ways are modern pampleteers — should be shut out of the political debate for expressing their opinions online is anathematic to even the most restrictive interpretations of the First Amendment.

It’ll be interesting to see how newspaper editorial boards react to this. It’ll be a nice test of their real allegiance to free expression.

This is what campaign finance regulation has come to. This is the absurdity of curbing poltical speech in a free soceity when drawn to its logical, foreseabble conclusion.

Get pissed off. This is important.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2005 at 11:01 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.