Friday, April 01, 2005
Free Speech on the Internet
Ryan Sager has another editorial on Campaign Finance Reform (CFR) in this New York Post Online Edition: . He makes a disturbing case that the CFR lobby is working on a tactic of incremental change that will result in substantial restrictions in freedom of political speech over the internet. The key to a successful speech restiction campaign centers on the just-issued Federal Election Commission (FEC) proposed (now draft) rules to apply the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (a.k.a. McCain-Feingold) to the Web.
As Sager puts it : "These would be the first restrictions of online politics — especially on Web logs, the journals known as "blogs."
The folks behind this push claim that they just want to make sure paid political ads on the Web don't slip through a "loophole." Yet the "reformers" have already put us on notice that it won't end there. ...
The FEC's draft regulations, published last week, would set the following rules for the Internet:
* Online banner and pop-up ads would face the same limits as any other advertising.
* The "media exemption" from McCain-Feingold would be extended to some online news and commentary sites (such as Slate, Salon and the Drudge Report) — though not necessarily to bloggers.
* Individual, uncompensated online commentators could only conduct election-related activities from personal or publicly available (library, Internet café) computers. Use of an employer-supplied computer could violate the law.
Now, these rules aren't so innocuous to begin with. Any regulation of blogs opens up a large class of small-time political commentators — without access to The New York Times' legal team — to frivolous complaints and endless harassment by way of the FEC. And you can be sure it will be the most successful bloggers, those doing the most to sway public opinion for or against candidates, who will be targeted. "
Sager notes how each of these rules could easily be expanded to the point where independent speech is severely restricted. As an example, some bloggers have incorporated, sometimes as LLC's, to reduce their liability, but corporations are banned from political activity unless they have media exemption. ( Fundamentally, it seems backwards that some media corporations have exemptions allowing them to express freely their political opinions while individual citizens do not.) Remember the real danger is not that the rules stop your speech, BUT that the rules make it easy for organized groups to harrass you legally to the point that you don't speak because of the expense of defending yourself.
Sager concludes that the best solution would be for Congress to pass a bill exempting the Internet from the McCann-Feingold law along the lines of one proposed by Sen Reid; but he is not optimistic.
I would add that anyone interested can also comment directly to the FEC and oppose the draft rules while they are open for public comment these next 2 months. Perhaps they will listen if enough people simply write in and ask that either the internet be exempted or, failing that, that all blog activity be recognized as free speech and granted media exemption. The same request could be made to our senators and representatives for legislation that preserves freedom of speech over the Internet.
The Internet and Blogs are major new technological tools that foster democracy by enabling widespread freedom of speech by and for ordinary citizens. To restrict the use of these tools by citizens for political speech seems a clear travesty of the First Ammendment and the travesty is compounded by the irony of using a CFR law, supposedly enacted to protect citizens from big money influencing elections. Let's keep free speech on the Internet.
As Sager puts it : "These would be the first restrictions of online politics — especially on Web logs, the journals known as "blogs."
The folks behind this push claim that they just want to make sure paid political ads on the Web don't slip through a "loophole." Yet the "reformers" have already put us on notice that it won't end there. ...
The FEC's draft regulations, published last week, would set the following rules for the Internet:
* Online banner and pop-up ads would face the same limits as any other advertising.
* The "media exemption" from McCain-Feingold would be extended to some online news and commentary sites (such as Slate, Salon and the Drudge Report) — though not necessarily to bloggers.
* Individual, uncompensated online commentators could only conduct election-related activities from personal or publicly available (library, Internet café) computers. Use of an employer-supplied computer could violate the law.
Now, these rules aren't so innocuous to begin with. Any regulation of blogs opens up a large class of small-time political commentators — without access to The New York Times' legal team — to frivolous complaints and endless harassment by way of the FEC. And you can be sure it will be the most successful bloggers, those doing the most to sway public opinion for or against candidates, who will be targeted. "
Sager notes how each of these rules could easily be expanded to the point where independent speech is severely restricted. As an example, some bloggers have incorporated, sometimes as LLC's, to reduce their liability, but corporations are banned from political activity unless they have media exemption. ( Fundamentally, it seems backwards that some media corporations have exemptions allowing them to express freely their political opinions while individual citizens do not.) Remember the real danger is not that the rules stop your speech, BUT that the rules make it easy for organized groups to harrass you legally to the point that you don't speak because of the expense of defending yourself.
Sager concludes that the best solution would be for Congress to pass a bill exempting the Internet from the McCann-Feingold law along the lines of one proposed by Sen Reid; but he is not optimistic.
I would add that anyone interested can also comment directly to the FEC and oppose the draft rules while they are open for public comment these next 2 months. Perhaps they will listen if enough people simply write in and ask that either the internet be exempted or, failing that, that all blog activity be recognized as free speech and granted media exemption. The same request could be made to our senators and representatives for legislation that preserves freedom of speech over the Internet.
The Internet and Blogs are major new technological tools that foster democracy by enabling widespread freedom of speech by and for ordinary citizens. To restrict the use of these tools by citizens for political speech seems a clear travesty of the First Ammendment and the travesty is compounded by the irony of using a CFR law, supposedly enacted to protect citizens from big money influencing elections. Let's keep free speech on the Internet.
