I agree.

You want to see a mass uprising in the United States? Even a Revolution? This might just be the thing to do it. Does ANYONE, outside a government bureaucrat, really want this to come to pass?

Interesting post. I don't think anything is going to actually restrict blogs -- these laws will fall. Laws regulating the sharing of information may all be doomed, in their current form.

Such laws worked once because the flow of information was controlled by a few powerful groups. You could communicate individually/locally without these groups, but regional/national communication was virtually impossible.

Things have changed so fast with regard to how we communicate. Ten years ago all these laws would have made some sense. Maybe even five years ago.

It's amazing to think about how little access the average person had to information 10 years ago as opposed to today.

I agree with Aaron it would virtually be impossible to restrict blogs and shutdown the blogosphere. It's too easy to upload information from a different country.


On the other hand the idea that they're thinking about it is outragous. If the FCC tries it, I think it would be something that calls for civil disobedience.

People are going to jail for downloading Brittney Spears.

The fatcats, kleptocrats, and cronies already have their networks established. From the Golf-Courses of America, to the anonymous bank accounts of Barbados, to the Boardrooms of GE/NBC, Disney/ABC, and FOX. From will, to massive public psy-ops.

OF COURSE they want to castrate any attempt by the opposition to use the internet to undermine them. Just as the American Public is becoming dimly aware that the entirity of the US Mass Media has been converted into a mind-control device for the Military Industrial Complex, and that there IS an alternative on the internet.

Folks like Josh Marshall will be getting subpoenas and DoJ raids. Folks like Matt Drudge will continue on, unabated. Feingold-McCain was a classic example straight out of Sun-Tzu, use the enemy's attack against him.

I agree OBF. They DO have some power in restricting the internet. Look at the RIAA and people they're busting for downloading music. If they have the legal right's to obtain the info to bust these people, they can get the legal rights to obtain the info to bust others for other things. I'm sure most of you, if not all of us, realise that you're very unAnonymous in blogs and on the web. You may be to people who frequent the site, but the admins of that site have info that easily leads to more info, that eventually leads to you, sitting in front of your computer, speaking your mind.

In 1999 I filed comments in support of Leo Smith's position in the advisory opinion that started this shebang. Later I and 1200 other people, a then-record, filed comments saying "hands off the internet." They've just done another round, got another 1200 comments, and are implementing regulations. None of you intervened in the Shays case so that the bad decision could have been appealed. I welcome correspondence [gtbear at gmail] with anyone interested in working on these issues.
Congrats on the instalanche.

You may be to people who frequent the site, but the admins of that site have info that easily leads to more info, that eventually leads to you, sitting in front of your computer, speaking your mind.

That information is largely limited to an IP address, but it can be enough to track someone down if the ISP is coperative. (HI MR. LEON DIXON) If you are willing to take some paranoid steps you could put yourself behind enough walls to make you hard to locate. I was thinking hosting in an outside non-us friendly country and your posting traffic bounced off a anon shell.

But I'm not that paranoid.

Is Glenn Reynolds going to move his wife and kid out of the country and leave his professorship behind so he can blog? Are the attorneys at Powerline going to relocate to what, the Cayman Islands, to blog? Josh Marshall? Patterico? Oliver Willis? Kos? Michelle Malkin? Eugene Volokh?

Take your pick on either side of the spectrum; most of the most-effective U.S. bloggers have public-enough lives and families or roots in the United States, for goodness sake, and aren't going to be able to evade the law by spoofing IP addresses.

This is a real threat, partly because nothing happened on the political level after previous violations of free speech rights, which now even the Supreme Court does not recognize (I guess these limitations are the custom in Brussels).

Great post Josh. I do agree with Aaron that I don't think they will actuall come down on blogs, except for maybe the top few. The expense of enforcement would simply be too high.

Though I am shocked by the abuse to the first amendment the court has perpetrated here.

Totalitarian governments, like ours, need to be resisted. Light a fire under your local congressman.

This "proposal" couldn't be the action of someone who wants to kill McCain-Feingold, could it? The guy knows it's BS that would never stand up to scrutiny. Why? I make a post about what someone is saying on their campaign website. To prove that I am not lying or taking it out of context I provide a link. This is done by posts that are pro-candidate and anti-candidate. To claim that a link provided as a piece of information comes under the purview of McCain-Feingold would never pass Supreme Court review.

Here is where the tail of the blogosphere has a role. Whatever they do, we ought make a point of linking campaign websites in the next cycle and giving the FEC too many violations to handle. We also ought to report each other, just in case their paperwork load is getting too light. And we ought to forward everything to those who voted for McCain-Feingold. Give every anti-speech Congressman 70 or 80,000 reports a day from correspondents doing their duty by reporting abuses and Congress will get the message. And feature the phrase, "I blog and I vote" on everything you write for the effort.

I must put this on my "things to do this month" list, to-wit:
1) Pray that a really articulate local blogger somewhere traps the crazy Dr. Dean of the DNC in an off-the-cuff exchange about the DNC position on this, and gets him to support a blogger exemption. I would prefer this, because Dr. Dean doesn't like to take back his extemporaneous remarks.
2) Pray that the really big bloggers, who have lots of traffic and tip-jars, forum shop for a "friendly" federal judge somewhere, and when sued by the FEC over exactly this kind of linking, get a favorable ruling that the postulated blog regulations, as outlined, are unconstitutional. Thus, if the "friendliest" federal judge would be in the Twin Cities, let one of the Powerline guys be our Rosa Parks, only with a huge tip-jar legal defense fund. If the judge will not rule it unconstitutional, he or she might still rule that the "donation" is equal to the marginal cost of the posting made. Thus, most bloggers would be made safe if they limited their political donations to something like $50 under the maximum permitted. It would be interesting to know how the FEC regulates the mega-connected master fund-raisers who use old fashioned telephones and Rolodexes. Those guys raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, all in secret; at least blogers are transparent in thier doings and leanings.
3) It seems we have provided a lot of moral support to various Iraqi bloggers. Maybe one or more of them would like to comment on our politics using his or her local ISP and server, and all any US blogger would be doing is suggesting comments to his or her Iraqi friend. If Hope and Crosby can go to morocco, let the FEC go to Mosul or Kirkuk to prosecute. Good hunting, guys.
4) Think up a firendly defense of a blogger exemption, and send it to (your choice): (a) all 535 Senators and Congresspersons, (b) your own representatives, or (c) those of your party inclination only. Doeds anyone wish to draft that template letter?
Jim

The fact that we even have to try to think about a work-around to avoid the law is a travesty. What happened to Congress making no law restricting freedom of speech? For those who think it's unenforcable, all you really need are a couple of high profile judgements against bloggers, and suddenly any local blogger who campaigns against a local candidate can be credibly threatened with a report to the FEC if they don't take their site down. Most bloggers are hobbyists; how many are going to go through the hassle of paying for an out-of-country ISP and software to mask their true identity? This is a very real threat; hopefully it'll be the catalyst for a groundswell of opposition to McCain-Feingold.

Gee, OBF, if you're so worried about this being another nasty Rethuglican dirty trick designed to destroy the opposition, maybe you ought to get the three Democratic commissioners on the FEC to go along with the three Republican commissioners to appeal the internet sections of Kollar-Kotelly's decision. Otherwise, it appears that certain Donks want the internet to be included in McCain-Feingold's idiocy. And in regard to the media, they'll go along with this because it maintains their status as gatekeepers of political discourse, not because of some imagined conspiracy.

Sorry, but dragging RIAA and music downloading into this is ludicrous. There is a perfectly reasonable argument that acquiring copyrighted music illegally is theft. Therefore the people whose copyright is being violated should be able to take SOME action to try and stop it. The question is what kind of action. OTOH, I think that the Disney Copyright Permanence Act stinks. Copyright was meant to provide for the rights of the creators. Some extension for their estate could be considered reasonable. But ninety years? Their great-great-grandchildren shouldn't necessarily still be benefitting.

"Sorry, but dragging RIAA and music downloading into this is ludicrous."

If this is directed at me bringing the RIAA into the argument, I only did so to point out that the means to get the info exist. Your rebuttal makes no sense to my comments.

There Are No 'Federal' Elections
By Ben DoubleCrossed

Please encourage your Congressman to co-sponsor Representative Roscoe Bartlett's “First Amendment Restoration Act” — HR 46.

There are no 'Federal' elections, only elections for federal office held in the states. The Federal Election Commission is not the solution to corruption in Federal Politics ... it is the corruption of Federal Politics!

Ask yourself the question: who is better suited to regulating federal politicians, federal politicians or state politicians and the people? The founding fathers delegated authority for holding and regulating elections to the states and the people:

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

The Federal Election Commission's claim to jurisdiction over 'Federal' elections is both constitutionally and historically bogus. There are no 'Federal' elections, only elections for federal offices held in the various states.

If you visit the Federal Election Commission on the internet (http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml), you will find under the title "Historical Background" the Federal Campaign Reform Act was not written until 1971. The FEC opened its doors in 1975 and administered the first publicly funded Presidential election in 1976. http://www.fec.gov/pdf/citizen_guide_pub.pdf

Allowing federal politicians to write the laws regulating how they are elected is equivalent to ‘please massah don’t beat me anymore’. The Constitution was not amended to grant the federal government authority to regulate state held elections? Federal politicians ignored the lawful amendment process because they knew the states and the people would not approve!

Corruption Breeds Corruption: FECA Crowns the Royal Press

Following reports of serious financial abuses in the 1972 Presidential campaign, Congress amended the FECA in 1974 to set limits on contributions by individuals, political parties and PACs.

The following serious abuse was not reported because the 4th estate was the abuser.

Some of our nation’s largest newspapers found themselves in federal court loosing antitrust suits which accused them of purchasing financially troubled newspapers and then pretending to compete with them while rigging prices.

The Newspaper Preservation Act was working its way through congress and was designed to grant antitrust relief to the affected newspapers. Richard Nixon and his, Attorney General, were on record as strongly opposed to the passage of the Newspaper Preservation Act.

A newspaper executive wrote a letter to President Nixon as his re-election approached. The letter reminded President Nixon that the nation’s largest Newspaper chains published in those states that had the largest number of electoral votes. The carefully worded letter reminded President Nixon that it could be difficult to be re-elected without their editorial support.

President Nixon reversed his position and used his political skills to convince congress to pass the Newspaper Preservation Act.

[See pgs.95-99] The Media Monopoly 5th edition paperback by Professor Ben HBagdikian.

The newly minted campaign laws should have castigated the 4th estate as well as Nixon? Instead the Federal Election Campaign Reform Act exempted them and created the ‘Royal Corporate Press’:

The following reference to the Press Exemption is excerpted from a letter by Senator Mitch McConnell

Section 431(9)(B)(i) makes a distinction where there is no real difference: the media is extremely powerful by any measure, a "special interest" by any definition, and heavily engaged in the "issue advocacy" and "independent expenditure" realms of political persuasion that most editorial boards find so objectionable when anyone other than a media outlet engages in it. To illustrate the absurdity of this special exemption the media enjoys, I frequently cite as an example the fact that if the RNC bought NBC from GE the FEC would regulate the evening news and, under the McCain-Feingold "reform" bill, Tom Brokaw could not mention a candidate 60 days before an election. This is patently absurd.

Had the Senate debate on the McCain-Feingold bill advanced to the point of amendments, among the first I offered would have been one to delete section 431(9)(B)(i). Whenever the opportunity presents itself in the future, I look forward to doing just that. I believe it would be an enlightening discussion. Indeed, the issue was frequently raised during the floor debates in 1997 and 1998 and helped to crystallize for Senators and the C-SPAN viewing audience that the campaign finance debate is, indeed, a discussion of core constitutional freedom." Excerpt from Mitch McConnell’s July 8, 1998 letter to his constituent Richard Lewis. - http://amendment10.tripod.com/Mhome.gif

And Gags We the People

Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What part of Congress Shall Pass no law does Congress not understand? And what about rights granted to citizens by State Constitutions:

Kentucky Constitution, Section 8
Freedom of speech and of the press.
Printing presses shall be free to every person who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the General Assembly or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. Every person may freely and fully speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
Text as Ratified on: August 3, 1891, and revised September 28, 1891.
History: Not yet amended.

Until the "corporate press" exemption is addressed, the ombudsman at the newspaper office acts as the gatekeeper of free political speech. If the newspaper prints your political comments about an issue or candidate, your advocacy may reach a circulation of hundreds of thousands and you enjoy the same exemption from campaign finance spending limits and reporting requirements as the New York Times.

Ink by the Barrel trumps ink by the bottle

If the newspaper rejects your article and you decide to deliver your message door to door via handbills, you need to visit the Federal Election Commission and familiarize yourself with terms like: political action committee, independent Vs in-Kind donations, issue Vs express advocacy, spending limits, reporting intervals and coordination with a candidate’s campaign. If that isn't daunting enough to discourage you from participating, remember failure to comply with Campaign Finance Laws is a felony.

A newspaper may endorse a candidate and reprint his platform daily, but an individual or grassroots organization doing so may be limited in how much can be spent. To compete with the circulation of a newspaper individuals or organizations must make ‘Independent Expenditures’.

As subscribers to a newspaper we expect columnists to interview a candidate prior to publishing an editorial. But if a citizen or grassroots organization interviews a candidate before publishing and distributing handbills promoting that candidate, they have committed "coordination" and the total amount they can spend in a campaign is limited.

At 2 cents per handbill, individuals or grassroots organizations reach campaign spending limits after reaching a small fraction of the circulation of many newspapers. And so I ask, since no matter how fast I walk handbills cannot compete with newspapers or broadcasters, why are grassroots efforts regulated while corporate media are not?

Every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add... artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society--the farmers, mechanics, and laborers--who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. (President Andrew Jackson, veto of national bank bill, July 10, 1832).

Campaign finance laws restrict grassroots influence and that protects the political interest of approximately 4% of our U.S. population, who finance federal election campaigns. [the 4% figure is from a government study]

FECA’s Mission is Confused, Misinformed and Unnecessary

Confused
The 1974 amendments also established an independent agency, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to enforce the law, facilitate disclosure and administer the public funding program. Congress made further amendments to the FECA in 1976 following a constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valero; major amendments were also made in 1979 to streamline the disclosure process and expand the role of political parties.

The next set of major amendments came in the form of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). Among other things, the BCRA banned national parties from raising or spending nonfederal funds (often called “soft money”), restricted so-called issue ads, increased the contribution limits and indexed certain limits for inflation.

Can someone explain to me how the two statements in red above, from the FEC website, jibe? How does the latter serve to expand the role of political parties?

Misinformed
The Press Exemption:
2 USC 431 (9) (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;

During the 40s and early 50s Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up, was typical of many communities across the nation. Louisville had a Democratic and a Republican newspaper and that was how the parties made war with each other over issues and attempted to woo voters. How is it that using newspapers to promote political views of like minded readership fallen out of vogue and become a practice that needs oversight of a Federal Censor?

Unnecessary
What do all these rule about how much money can be spent communicating political ideas about issues and candidates protect the public from .. exercise of 1st Amendment freedoms, the ability to make an informed choice, the election of new leadership with fresh 'people first' ideas?

The Newspaper Exemption is bogus and must be repealed. If a politician must pay newspapers and broadcasters to carry his ads how can positive or negative editorials by those same media outlets not have value? Newspapers and Radio and Television Broadcasters are corporations and dependent on advertising revenue from the same special interests that campaign reforms are supposedly written to protect the public from.

Does anyone remember the "New Coke" advertisement campaign? Despite spending millions it failed, because people did not like "New Coke". National politics should be free to all competing ideas and groups according to their means. A well written handbill can trump a million dollar campaign and that is why grassroots are gagged and the corporate press is exempt!

Prior to the Federal Campaign Act American citizens did not need to ask anyone permission to participate in politics and that was what the 1st Amendment intended.

Since the passage of the Federal Campaign Reform Act the percentage of incumbent federal politicians has reached the all time high of 95-98%. That is a higher percentage than politburo members were reelected in cold war Russia. Federal Campaign laws written by our federal employees are incumbent protection acts. Federal campaign laws have not leveled the playing field and made it easier for challengers or independent parties (although 1/3rd of Americans are no registered as Independents).
Now the Cancer of Censorship is Spreading to the Web
and we must
Fight Tyranny with Keystrokes

The Federal Election Commission will consider rulemaking to apply the Bipartisan Campaign Act to politics on the web sometime in March 2005. An FEC employee told me there will be a press release on March 17th or 24th. According to articles on Zdnet and Worldnet Daily, proposed regulations may require blog posters to register with the FEC, report expenditures at regular intervals, assign a value to hyperlinks and set contribution limits.

Do you want to familiarize yourself with terms like: political action committee (PAC), independent vs in-Kind donations, issue vs express advocacy, spending limits, reporting intervals and coordination with a candidate’s campaign, before engaging in political discussion on the web? And remember failure to comply with campaign finance laws is a felony!

This is America’s last chance to keep a vestige of freedom of speech, press and assembly once guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. Public input will be accepted via email, fax and snail mail so watch http://www.fec.gov for your opportunity. In the interim, write your Congressmen, www.house.gov/, and Senators, www.senate.gov/ , and demand legislation to exempt the internet!