FCC and Bloggers
A lot of people are giving the FCC shit for moving to enforce a law.
They don’t give the law any shit, they give the enforcers the shit.
“Shoot the messenger” attitudes don’t help.
Go to www.DownsizeDC.org to get more info and sign a petition. The
direct page is http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=19
Here’s the problem in a nutshell:
On September 18, 2004, in a dense, 157-page decision, Judge Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly ruled . . .
“To permit an entire class of political communications to be
completely unregulated . . . would permit an evasion of campaign
finance laws . . . ”
(for the full legalese of this sentence see page 58 of her
decision, available on our Background page
http://action.downsizedc.org/background.php?cid=19)
The “entire class of political communications” to which the Judge refers
is the Internet — blogs, websites, and even emails.
On October 28, 2004 the Federal Election Commission (FEC) voted /not/ to
appeal this ruling. This means the FEC is now required to draft
regulations controlling political expression through websites, blogs,
and emails. These new regulations could compel political bloggers to
register with the government, fill out complicated forms, and keep
detailed records. What kind of activities could trigger these regulations?
* Forwarding a campaign press release using email.
* Posting a campaign ad on your blog.
* Linking to a candidate’s website from your home page.
If you place a link to a candidate’s website in your blog, and thousands
of people visit the candidate’s site through that link, the FEC could
determine that the value of that extra traffic exceeds the campaign
contribution limits. And then you’ll be in big trouble.
Failure to comply with the FEC’s contribution limits, accounting,
registration, and reporting requirements, could result in large fines or
imprisonment.
At DownsizeDC.org, we speak with experience when we say, “Complying with
these regulations is time consuming and expensive — often requiring
lawyers and accountants.”
This is a direct assault on your individual “free press rights” and will
have a “chilling effect” on grassroots political participation. Despite
the do-gooder attempt to clean up the system, the practical result of
the campaign finance laws is to silence government critics for the
benefit of incumbent office holders and the established corporate news
media.
The established media is legally exempted from regulations limiting
/their/ expenditures on opinions about federal candidates. The relevant
section of the law [2 U.S.C. 431(9)(b)] reads:
(B) /The term “expenditure” does not include–(i) any news story,
commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any
broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical
publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any
political party, political committee, or candidate;…/
Thus, NewYorkTimes.com is exempted from the regulations, but individual
bloggers are not. The New York Times could reprint a candidate’s press
release verbatim with no problem, but if you do the same thing on your
blog, or distribute the press release to your email list, you could
trigger the campaign finance regulations.
In short, the established corporate news media enjoys a full freedom of
the press, but you do not.
The new Internet regulations have not been written yet, but
whistleblowing FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith says *they /will/ be
written* over the next few months. Thanks to Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s
order, the die is cast, and the only way to preserve unregulated
political expression on the Internet is for Congress to repeal the law
that sanctions these regulations, BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
of 2002). Please use our Electronic Lobbyist system below to tell
Congress you want the FEC to keep their hands off our blogs — urge
Congress to repeal BCRA!
–
-Byron
www.ByronSolomon.com
All Ohs
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