Democrats Defeat Online FOS Act 782
not so anonymous writes "The Online Freedom of Speech Act was defeated in the House of Representatives yesterday. The Act would have immunized political bloggers from having to comply with hundreds of pages of FEC rules." From the article: "In an acrimonious debate that broke largely along party lines, more than three-quarters of congressional Democrats voted to oppose the reform bill, which had enjoyed wide support from online activists and Web commentators worried about having to comply with a tangled skein of rules. The vote tally in the House of Representatives, 225 to 182, was not enough to send the Online Freedom of Speech Act to the Senate. Under the rules that House leaders adopted to accelerate the process, a two-thirds supermajority was required."
It's not just blogging! (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA, here's the full text of the bill:
That means that, if it had passed, anything posted on the Internet would be exempt from campaign finance laws. That means advertisements, editorials, etc. That means it would be perfectly legal for a political party to use campaign donations to hire people to write political blogs that they might not otherwise have written on their own time, initiative, and opinions. That means hiring people to comment on message boards and other people's blogs. In other words, it means astroturfing.
You may think this is a good thing, in which case it ought to be extended to the print and real worlds -- just remove all those limitations in the first place. But if you think we should be limiting the effect that money has on election campaigns, what makes the Internet special?
As it stands, anyone blogging on their own time already has free speech on the internet. So let's not cast this as a blogbing issue.
Legislation is one thing, enforcement is another.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The complexity of the issue (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the Supreme Court, campaign finance laws do not violate the 1st Amendment. The argument basically goes like this:
So, now we're talking about the Internet. And here's the problem:
If someone has a political blog, that is probably free speech.
If someone pays a large number of people to have political blogs to support their view, is that still free speech, or is that diluting free speech?
What's the difference between paying for an advertisement on television saying that "Candidate so-and-so likes to have sex with black people and make bastard babies, don't vote for him!" and a company buying up advertisement on the Internet saying the same thing?
So, while I don't think that either the Dems or the Repubs have noble interests at heart, this is an interesting challenge. Do you just say "The Internet doesn't have to worry about campaign finance", and give the possibility of the delution of "pure" free speech as discussed by the Supreme Court and previous campaign finance laws, or do you try and put some language saying "If you get money based on your political views, you have to reveal who did it and how much and can only accept X amount".
I'd rather see a law like the "truth in advertising" - if you're getting money for writing the blog/hosting an ad, you have to state on your web site where that comes from and how much. This way people who are just running ads can say "Google adsense", and those getting it from campaign groups can disclosed if they are a hired gun or not. Granted, there is more to the language than this, but this is just my thumbnail sketch, so if you need to split hairs, at least come up with your own complete language to cover the complexity of the issue
It's an interesting question, and one that *should* be debated for a good and long time. If you notice, this was the failure not of a majority but of a "mega-majority" of 2/3 to pass the bill. Some further debate and clarification of the language should make it palatable to that majority in the end, which I believe is perfectly reasonable.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
Re:Freedom of speech had nothing to do with it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lovely Omission (Score:1, Interesting)
Its a choice that has to be made, are they covered under the same rules as journalists, in which case they should face the same restriction, or are they just individuals posting what they think, with the implication that what they say better be backed up and there is no protecting sources.
Re:Lovely Omission (Score:2, Interesting)
Aaaargh! (Score:3, Interesting)
And then came the 90's.
Bill Clinton still did many good things -- but one of the worst things he did (IMNSHO) was to cause the Democratic party to lose its identity. He frequently took Republican initiatives, rubbed off the serial numbers, and called it "Good." Then came Gore & Kerry -- both of whose campaign platforms could be summed up as "I'm not George W. Bush."
Then we have stuff like the DMCA and the Sonny Bono act, both of which should have been squashed by traditional Democrats... and instead are supported by them.
I'm disgusted. Bring back a JFK. Bring back a Roosevelt! Hell -- even Carter! He made some really dumb mistakes, but nobody doubts his sincere willingness to try to do what he felt was best -- as his continued works with Habitat for Humanity show.
Instead, we get Ted (The One That Wouldn't Go Away) Kennedy, we get Tom (I'm a waste of space and air) Daschle, we get antagonists, footdraggers and backpeddalers.
God, I hope McCain runs next time. I'll vote for him before most any Democratic contender I can think of. Perhaps that's why I'm now a registered independent. *sigh*
Re:What a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
and while every single Democrat is against the war today - how was it that the authority to go to war went 99 to nothing in the senate?
I find it funny that on the War and the Patriot Act, the Dems VOTED lock-step with the Republicans, while a mere 2 years later, are violently opposed to the very things that they voted for?
Both parties suck in so many ways, its frightening.
Adults Vote Libertarian.
Re:What a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot has come out since the vote on the authorization for Iraq. You already know it's not as simple an issue as you make it out to be, so I won't explain it again for you. As for the PATRIOT Act, there was no time to read the bill due to the way it was proposed. Days after 9/11, Democrats weren't about to vote against a bill that claimed to provide tools for fighting terrorism.
Re:Lovely Omission (Score:3, Interesting)
Just another state which is unlikely to bend to the will of America.
There was some good analysis of Venezuela and South American politics in general on the BBC World Service this morning.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Somewhere, somone said..... (Score:3, Interesting)
If Moveon.org isn't a sucessful grassroots organization then what is? Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Actually, the law was problematic since it delinated the Internet from all other media, effectively allowing anything goes on the largest and widest media ever known. This was a bad bill and should have been killed. We want transparency, we want bloggers and other Internet media outlets to show where their funding comes from in order to separate honest viewpoints from propaganda.
Re:Lovely Omission (Score:2, Interesting)
This says more about those objecting to this article than it does about the article itself.
Re:Lovely Omission (Score:5, Interesting)
It's pretty disturbing
So see a shrink, and be sure to let us know how that works out for you. I think it's pretty AMAZING that this story got through with such a reverse slant in play. Is
Re:mirror world? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's been proven my repeated indepenant studies that Fox News is so biased and mixes opinion and news so freely [intentionally] that they have engendered inaccurate knowledge in 80% of their viewers.
People who watch fox news have been shown to be less accurately inclined about the real world than people who watch/listen to BBC American, PBS, NPR
Infact ABC/CBS/NBC aren't too much better than Fox - and you know all the factually inaccuracies they push off favor the administration's positions.
For example in one quite pointed study about misconceptions and support of the Iraq war three questions were asked - and the more of them they got wrong the more likely they were to be the following
A) Supporters of the war
B) Fox news viewers
[Ref: PIPA]
Re:Rewind a bit (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527c
Note that of the top 10, only numbers 4,5 and 7 are Republican and only one, 9, is reasonably non-partisan.
Re:What a joke (Score:1, Interesting)
Disputed.
That is catagorically not a fact. It is a conclusion drawn, logically, from a set of assumptions. Those assumptions may or may not be true in any particular case. Yes, in a perfectly party-aligned partisan decision, with normal house rules, the minority has no power. I agree. You have made an implied assumption, not stated it, in an attempt to represent a stronger conclusion then is otherwise supportable.
If the GOP wanted this bill, it would have been through the House by now. I challenge anyone to dispute that, also.
Disputed.
You define "wanted" as a binary condition. There are very clearly not equal levels of 'want'. If the Republicans wanted to circumvent the current rules in place, go through the trouble, and get the bill into law, they would. The democrats (and you) would then be whining about abuse of power, and circumvention. There may be bigger tradeoffs at play here, involving why those rules are in play, and what compromises have been reached. I have no idea what the Republicans would have to give up, in terms of agreed compromises, to remove the current set of rules, but I imagine the situation is not nearly as simplified as your oversimplication implies.
You also conviently forget the opposite position, as well:
If the Democrats wanted this bill, it would have been through the House by now.
Re:Uh, that was the WHOLE POINT (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, money doesn't win elections in America. That's why we didn't get Perot as President. It's why Forbes didn't get the nomination.
Correlation does not imply causation. Read "Freakonomics". It covers this specifically in one section, and shows you the statistics. Money is not the cause of winning elections.
Re:Lovely Omission (Score:5, Interesting)
For the rest of you, if you're in favor of regulations on free speech, then just come out and say so. Explain your reasoning, talk about extenuating circumstances, just like timeOday has done. Stop pretending that this isn't a limitation on free speech.
The Supreme Court has struck down numerous campaign finance laws over first amendment issues (Buckley vs US, anyone?). Former house majority leader (Democrat) Dick Gephardt responded by suggesting that the First Amendment be changed to allow campaign finance limits. The current SCOTUS has ruled that campaign finance IS a limitation on free speech, but that extenuating circumstances (making things appear less corrupt) justifies it.
For my part, I'm opposed to any attempt by do-gooder meddlers to limit free speech just because they think that paid advertising == mind control. Inevitably, this is an attempt to control and limit debate and free discussion. The FEC has ruled that blogs will be regulated and controlled by the campaign finance laws, and the defeat of this bill (to stop the menace of banner ads and popups) reaffirms that this is the Law of the Land.
If you're a Democrat, do the decent thing and be embarrassed. Your party isn't right all the time, any more than Libertarians or Republicans are. Admit that your side got this one wrong, contribute to the EFF [eff.org], and go to local party meetings and tell them that as a loyal democrat you're astonished that you'd see normally smart good people doing this.
I'm a Republican, but I try to have the intellectual honesty to admit when my party has it wrong-- which we often are. You're doing your party a service by keeping them honest.
Would it matter anyhow? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Uh, that was the WHOLE POINT (Score:3, Interesting)
No, but if you read the article, and the links it shouldn't be a surprise. They said they were betrayed by their own side (this doesn't say which side is theirs, you have to read more to guess). In other links from that page the listed all the democrats who voted for this, and asked supporters call and thank them - no mention of republicans. There was no mention that most republicans supported this.
All that is fair, but I wish people who be honest when they are betrayed by their own side and defended by the other, and thank the other side. Their call though, most people don't have the guts to admit that the other side isn't 100% evil. At least they didn't spread lies about republicans in any of the links I spread.
Re:equally deep pockets on both sides (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:mirror world? (Score:2, Interesting)
It is so funny to me to listen to the Democratic Party's newly found fondness of federalism, where for 40 years prior they treated support of states' rights and federalism as mere code words for supporting racism and segregation, and out of touch with core American values. Now that they're outnumbered at the federal level, they have all kinds of respect for checks and balances and fiscal responsibility.
Pretty much the same thing is happening in Australia. Traditionally the "liberal" (i.e. conservative) party has been federalist, and the labor (sort of post-socialist; US spelling sic) has been centralist.
But today the liberals control both the federal houses of parliament (and hence also the executive), while the labor party has a clean sweep at the state level. Quite extraordinary political situation, and the effect on politicians' psychology, on both sides of politics, has been equally remarkable.
Yes, because it's pull vs. push!! (Score:3, Interesting)
That is entirely unlike TV advertising where my purchase of all ads means a specific number of viewers WILL be watching those ads.
People seek out what to read on the internet. They are told what they will watch on TV. That is why campaign finance reforms for the internet are utterly ridiculous and harmful.
The blocking of this bill is all about Democrats feeling that conservative blogs are, by and large, handing their ass to them on a platter. They want to see it all shut down, even if things like the Daily Kos end up taking collateral damage.
If this bill was so wrong, why did it enjoy such a preponderance of support from the blogging community at large both conservative and liberal (and otherwise). Surely if it were bad some of the more rational thinkers (pick your favorite on either side of the fence) would have been against it.