FEC May Regulate Online Political Activity 302
jgarzik writes "A recent federal court ruling ordered the U.S. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to rewrite rules that currently exempt, rather than regulate, political ads and speech on the Internet. Well, it's looking more and more likely that the FEC will not be able to avoid some amount of Internet regulation. I always thought that freedom of speech originated in part because the framers wanted to protect political speech. I guess I was being naive..."
Silly rabbit, Trix are for... (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're going to regulate political speech from candidates, that's one thing. That's not regulation of the Internet, but regulation of campaigns no matter where they are executed. Regulating political speech on the Internet for the regular user won't happen - not likely in theory and definitely not in reality.
Re:Internet ads should be treated like TV and prin (Score:4, Interesting)
gwbushsucks.cx or similar (made-up URL, not a real site as far as I am aware) might be hard to trace to an identifiable political body
doubletalk (Score:2, Interesting)
From the article:
"I don't think anybody here wants to impede the free flow of information over the Internet," Weintraub said. "The question then is, where do you draw the line?"
This statement makes no sense. I could see regulating the flow of money, but that is obviously not the issue here. The issue is at what point do they impose rules on SPEECH. The money will still flow from the corporations to the political parties, but we will no longer be allowed our little sandbox of freedom.Here's a wrench for you (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a file that I have on my computer.
I told some other people where I keep my file, and I let them come look at if they want.
If there's too many people looking at my file on my computer, I may pay my friend with a bigger computer to keep my file for me. And if some people want to look at my file, I may send them to my friend, who is keeping my file on his computer.
So, you see, it isn't speech at all.
It's property.
I'm Embarassed (Score:3, Interesting)
Candidate B is a bad man! Click here to help us raise money to stop him by donating to Candidate A.
The message is clearly intended to sway the viewer, but they technically are fund raisers, not advertisements. In other words, campaign laws shouldn't apply to them in the same way they apply to TV or print ads.
I've seen these come out of both parties and their respective PACs. It is the same argument used to defend Michael Moore. "This is different because we're making money... not spending it."
I'm embarassed that our politicians and political organizations are so willing to follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law. And I'm sure we'll see many more laws trying to reign in abusers. And we are just as likely to see a lot of new creativity to skirt the laws that are implimented.
Re:I nominate the McCain-Feingold... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:it has everything to do with free speech (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. If you put up a web page that advocates voting for someone, that can be called an "ad" and your cost to put the page up counted as a "contribution" to the candidate you support. These contributions are strictly limited, and ad content explicitly controlled, as well as time-restricted, so if you have a "Vote XXXXXXX" anywhere on your page, better take it down or face the "Campaign Finance Reform Police".
Your money has no place in elections.
Re:Then I AM protected in saying THIS: (Score:3, Interesting)
OK...
Let's see how the hell well THIS goes down in a presidential election year, given the past 4 years of events and the two candidates and their respective set pieces poised to either calm down or inflame the world toward the USA.
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The FEC or the people running the debates, NEED to raise this before the candidates:
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Citizens of ANY nation who fear being squelched, have their travel impeded, or be subjected to the US Do Not Fly List should demand that airlines GUARANTEE that if they are for some reason on the DNFL, they can receive a FULL refund on the SAME DAY they are denied flight. NO amount of chicanery, delayed notification, or the like should be permitted whether by collusion or indepent act between or of the flight or travel entities and/or the various governments, particularly the US and the DHLS entities.
This (potentially) will have some side-effects of:
-undermining "gold-digging" agencies from spuriously ore punitively or pugnaciously punishing political activitst
-undermining the ability of DHLS to simply put on the list anyone, anywhere, anytime with impunity and without a requirement to explain WHY said person is on the list or HOW to be extricated
-undermining the ability of DHLS to keep indefinitely on the list anyone who challenges it and demands being removed from it
-forcing airlines to take a stand on what information will and will NOT be shared on so-called security info-hunts, and forcing them to help booking passengers avert the inconvenience of erroneous/no-fault DHLS attachment/listing
-forcing airlines to revise their policy of "once you have the customers'/customer's money never give it back" (an activitiy even BEFORE the Star Trek DS9 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition), for the money should NEVER belong to a company until the goods are DELIVERED and USED, not just "booked", when it comes to DHLS obstruction to using a booked flight
--forcing the public to acknowledge that NO DNFL list of any sort should be used to persecute or intimidate ANY domestic or foreign national who has never even been arrested, never consorted with violent persons, never even killed anyone in self-defense or any other circumstance, never been hand-cuffed, never had called into question their prior or current service with any level of government service, classified work or not; persons with records that don't rise to a level of concern for safety of flying or operational aircraft should also not be on the list: unless they frequent terrorist training camps in a non-journalistic capacity; unless they are by familial, economic, pact or other modes connected to terrorists or terrorism-sponsoring nations (would that mean several members of the current and past US administrations SHOULD be on the DNFL, since we KNOW some of them shook hands with, rendered decisions to or enabled some of these terrorists to rise in power? (Oh, our taxes already pay for their private flights and security entourages...)
Forcing the airlines to face the prospect of losing passengers for inexplicable or nebulous or obscure or ad-hoc/whimsical reasons --other than "subject is on the DNFL for PROVEN, LISTED REASONS" will force them to technologic
Campaign reform is a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
Now they are going to regulate the Internet. Thanks guys!
Re:No way (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, you can say all you want as long as you don't spend any money to deliver the message, I think I can see how people might "misinterpret" the intention of campaign "finance reform".
Does anyone remember that guy that set up a web page on his server that was either pro or anti someone and the FEC went after him considering the cost of the computer and internet connection were over some threshold of spending that required him to register as a PAC. Register? If I buy a printing press and start printing leaflets, suddenly I need to pre register because of the content of my speech or face penalties or prison. Tell me how this isn't a prior restraint on the content of my speech? I dare ya.
Campaign finance "reform" and the restricitive regulations that come with it will only benefit entrenched politicians and interests. If you believe otherwise you are very naive.
Speech has never been totally free on internet (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Internet ads should be treated like TV and prin (Score:3, Interesting)
I was with you up to there.
I know of no such restriction. I do know of restrictions on political speech which limit candidates to the point (at least this is the intent) where they cannot un-hinge the democratic process by spending more money than their opponent. This does not work because we do not fully enforce, fund and augment such laws where needed. However, the idea is the same as assault: you cannot use speech to restrict the freedoms of others (including other candidates who have as much of a right to the voters' attention as you).
This is why I'm against excluding anyone who COULD win an election from appearing in a debate (in a presidential race this means including anyone who is on enough ballots to get a majority of electoral votes).
This is also why I'm for limiting how much money you and your supporters can spend in EVERY medium to support your campaign. That means that I can put up a pro-Joe-Blow site as long as I don't exceed individual campaign dontaions in terms of the resources expended (which, on a $20/month hosted site is easy to avoid). I can then say anything I want.
But, by the same token, Google could not put a giant Joe Blow ad on their homepage (because the value of that one ad would exceed the individual contribution allowed).
This is nothing new, and applying to the Internet is an expected consequence of the Internet's popularity as a medium. What will be interesting is enforcement, given the Inernet's nature as a truly international medium... we shall see.