Republican Wet Dream
I guess the slow simmer folks have been tending when it comes to regulating the internet is finally reaching a boil. Federal Election Commission hearings regarding regulating the net from the standpoint of elections are on, and all comments and proposed regulations are due the first week in June.
Several of my favorite bloggers have decided to get actively involved. Atrios, at his Eschaton blog had the following on May 4, 2005:
[S]tart from the principle of parallelism. Don't regulate the Internet any more stringently than any other medium. (quoting Adam Bonin at a Daily Kos Post)
To me, it almost starts and stops there. Sure, there are idiosyncratic differences across various types of outlets which may require medium-specific rules, but the basic point is in those two sentences. It's ridiculous that some people desire that a medium which requires no money in which to participate - for which there are no real gatekeepers - be effectively more regulated than radio/tv/print/etc.
What got all of the current interest in and paranoia over regulating the internet started? A complaint was filed with the FEC over what some saw as violations of the McCain Feingold Campaign Reform law during the last election. Candidates and campaigns paid some bloggers for good press and apparently got it.
The case was decided in September and the judge's opinion
was pretty clear:
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 .
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.
That certainly is a daunting prospect. There are millions of blogs out on the internet. I look on many of them as the current equivalent of the samizdat found in the old Soviet Union. Many are overtly political, others simply photo albums. Some contain critical reviews of arts, movies, news reports, while others are closer to personal journals or essays on the topic du jour.
I think the very free-form nature of bloggery is what scares so many of those in power. The completely unrestrained, unbridled exercise of free speech sometimes leads to the kind of revolution of thought and action that will destroy the status quo. It also can be the breeding ground of vicious and unwarranted attacks on character, of deliberate misinformation, and of totally uncontrolled fund raising.
What Atrios and Kos are trying to do is to make certain that any new FEC regulations are not as overly burdensome and restraining as might be anticipated in the above citation. I think this is a reasonable approach, and I appreciate the fact that two of the largest and most reliable progressive bloggers are spending what I suspect is a great deal of time on the issue.
Still, I can't help but be a little worried. It seems to me that allowing the FEC to promulgate even sensible regulations on blogs just might be opening the door for other government commisions or entities to institute further restrictions or restraints on what is the freest and most democratic forum known to modern humankind.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Several of my favorite bloggers have decided to get actively involved. Atrios, at his Eschaton blog had the following on May 4, 2005:
[S]tart from the principle of parallelism. Don't regulate the Internet any more stringently than any other medium. (quoting Adam Bonin at a Daily Kos Post)
To me, it almost starts and stops there. Sure, there are idiosyncratic differences across various types of outlets which may require medium-specific rules, but the basic point is in those two sentences. It's ridiculous that some people desire that a medium which requires no money in which to participate - for which there are no real gatekeepers - be effectively more regulated than radio/tv/print/etc.
What got all of the current interest in and paranoia over regulating the internet started? A complaint was filed with the FEC over what some saw as violations of the McCain Feingold Campaign Reform law during the last election. Candidates and campaigns paid some bloggers for good press and apparently got it.
The case was decided in September and the judge's opinion
was pretty clear:
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 .
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.
That certainly is a daunting prospect. There are millions of blogs out on the internet. I look on many of them as the current equivalent of the samizdat found in the old Soviet Union. Many are overtly political, others simply photo albums. Some contain critical reviews of arts, movies, news reports, while others are closer to personal journals or essays on the topic du jour.
I think the very free-form nature of bloggery is what scares so many of those in power. The completely unrestrained, unbridled exercise of free speech sometimes leads to the kind of revolution of thought and action that will destroy the status quo. It also can be the breeding ground of vicious and unwarranted attacks on character, of deliberate misinformation, and of totally uncontrolled fund raising.
What Atrios and Kos are trying to do is to make certain that any new FEC regulations are not as overly burdensome and restraining as might be anticipated in the above citation. I think this is a reasonable approach, and I appreciate the fact that two of the largest and most reliable progressive bloggers are spending what I suspect is a great deal of time on the issue.
Still, I can't help but be a little worried. It seems to me that allowing the FEC to promulgate even sensible regulations on blogs just might be opening the door for other government commisions or entities to institute further restrictions or restraints on what is the freest and most democratic forum known to modern humankind.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
posted by Diane at 10:31 AM
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