A Crackdown on Blogging?

Thu, Mar 3, 2005 at 1:37:45 pm PST

Here’s an article by Declan McCullagh about an issue that all bloggers need to be aware of, as Democratic commissioners are pushing for FEC regulations to be applied to blogs: The coming crackdown on blogging.

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.

Professor Bainbridge says we’re living in the First Amendment’s Bizarro World: Thank You Senators McCain and Feingold ... you [plural expletive deleted].

UPDATE at 3/3/05 1:45:24 pm:

Here are the web pages where you can contact Senator John McCain and Senator Russ Feingold; let them know you still believe in free speech.

UPDATE at 3/3/05 1:53:57 pm:

Glenn has more links to interesting posts on the subject.