Regulating the Internets
Political bloggers have been carefully watching the Federal Election Commission to see just what kind of regulations on internet activities the Commission was going to impose. Liberal and conservative bloggers agree on very little, but this is one area where they pretty much spoke as one voice. Most of us want the government to take a hands-off approach when it comes to our activities. It appears that for the most part we are getting our wish. From the Washington Post:
The Federal Election Commission last night released proposed new rules that leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated except for the purchase of campaign ads on Web sites.
"My key goal in this rule-making has been to make sure that the commission establish clear rules to exempt individuals who engage in online politics from campaign finance laws," said Chairman Michael E. Toner, a Republican.
...Most bloggers, individual Web users, and such Web sites as Drudge Report and Salon.com are exempted from regulation and will be free to support and attack federal candidates, much as newspapers are allowed.
For the most part, leading advocates of the blogger community welcomed the proposed rules.
"As a whole, these are rules that I think those who have been fighting regulations are going to be cheering," said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who runs the Election Law blog. The rules provide "broad exemptions for most political activity on the Internet, and expand the media exemption to the Internet," he said.
...The only restrictions in the proposal require that ads for federal candidates be paid for with money regulated by federal campaign law. Campaign law restricts individual contributions to $2,000, and bars unions and corporations from donating. [Emphasis added]
The ideal situation would have been for the federal government not to have any regulations involving blog sites, but a federal court ordered the FEC to issue regulations in conformity with the Mc Cain-Feingold Campaign Finance law after a law suit was brought. Of course, the ideal situation would have been for Congress to issue a clearly written proposal to exempt web political activity except for candidate and party sites. That, however, didn't happen, so the FEC was forced to step in and draft regulations in a vacuum. It looks like they didn't do too badly.
Still, those of us who see the internet as a wonderful free speech area which encourages open debate and the free expression of opinion by people not wealthy enough or politically powerful enough to own or influence the traditional media would have preferred no governmental intervention at all. Hopefully, this set of regulations hasn't opened the door for further "look-sees" by the powerful.
The Federal Election Commission last night released proposed new rules that leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated except for the purchase of campaign ads on Web sites.
"My key goal in this rule-making has been to make sure that the commission establish clear rules to exempt individuals who engage in online politics from campaign finance laws," said Chairman Michael E. Toner, a Republican.
...Most bloggers, individual Web users, and such Web sites as Drudge Report and Salon.com are exempted from regulation and will be free to support and attack federal candidates, much as newspapers are allowed.
For the most part, leading advocates of the blogger community welcomed the proposed rules.
"As a whole, these are rules that I think those who have been fighting regulations are going to be cheering," said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who runs the Election Law blog. The rules provide "broad exemptions for most political activity on the Internet, and expand the media exemption to the Internet," he said.
...The only restrictions in the proposal require that ads for federal candidates be paid for with money regulated by federal campaign law. Campaign law restricts individual contributions to $2,000, and bars unions and corporations from donating. [Emphasis added]
The ideal situation would have been for the federal government not to have any regulations involving blog sites, but a federal court ordered the FEC to issue regulations in conformity with the Mc Cain-Feingold Campaign Finance law after a law suit was brought. Of course, the ideal situation would have been for Congress to issue a clearly written proposal to exempt web political activity except for candidate and party sites. That, however, didn't happen, so the FEC was forced to step in and draft regulations in a vacuum. It looks like they didn't do too badly.
Still, those of us who see the internet as a wonderful free speech area which encourages open debate and the free expression of opinion by people not wealthy enough or politically powerful enough to own or influence the traditional media would have preferred no governmental intervention at all. Hopefully, this set of regulations hasn't opened the door for further "look-sees" by the powerful.
posted by Diane at 5:32 AM
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