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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9750)	3/10/2005 10:52:55 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 362720

Save Our Blogs Tell a friend about this campaign! 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) 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! The Petition Below is the text of the letter we will send on your behalf: I understand that a federal judge has ordered the FEC to craft regulations controlling individual political activity on the Internet. This decision is a direct consequence of BCRA. I urge you to take action today to repeal BCRA. [Your personal comments here] Get Involved! action.downsizedc.org