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In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.
Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.
In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. "The commission's exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines" the campaign finance law's purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But because they couldn't get the three Democrats to go along with them, what Smith describes as a "bizarre" regulatory process now is under way.
CNET News.com spoke with Smith about the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold law, and its forthcoming extrusion onto the Internet.
Q: What rules will apply to the Internet that did not before?
A: The commission has generally been hands-off on the Internet. We've said, "If you advertise on the Internet, that's an expenditure of money--much like if you were advertising on television or the newspaper."
The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.
Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals like CNET?
How can the government place a value on a blog that praises some politician?
How do we measure that? Design fees, that sort of thing? The FEC did an advisory opinion in the late 1990s (in the Leo Smith case) that I don't think we'd hold to today, saying that if you owned a computer, you'd have to calculate what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.
It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did. And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in. Line drawing is going to be an inherently very difficult task. And then we'll be pushed to go further. Why can this person do it, but not that person?
How about a hyperlink? Is it worth a penny, or a dollar, to a campaign?
I don't know. But I'll tell you this. One thing the commission has argued over, debated, wrestled with, is how to value assistance to a campaign.
Corporations aren't allowed to donate to campaigns. Suppose a corporation devotes 20 minutes of a secretary's time and $30 in postage to sending out letters for an executive. As a result, the campaign raises $35,000. Do we value the violation on the amount of corporate resources actually spent, maybe $40, or the $35,000 actually raised? The commission has usually taken the view that we value it by the amount raised. It's still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly.
Then what's the real impact of the judge's decision?
The judge's decision is in no way limited to ads. She says that any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum. The problem with coordinated activity over the Internet is that it will strike, as a minimum, Internet reporting services.
They're exempt from regulation only because of the press exemption. But people have been arguing that the Internet doesn't fit
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Colleen Kollar-Kotelly,
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It seems to me that there are millions of people who volunteer to work for a campaign in every election, big and small. How does that relate to donating money to a campaign?
If I volunteer to work for a campaign, does that mean I can't contribute the maximum amount of money as well?
Thumb. Nose.
It's been a problem ever since the establishment of this great nation of ours. Our founding fathers battled it out among themselves, with those on one side fighting for very little government and those on the other side vying for more government. It's the same battleground today, but it sure seems that those who want to control and regulate us to submission are winning their battles through the judges who sit on federal courts. Come on Americans! Don't let 'em!!
At least with TV, they can block such misbehavior with the digital rights enforcement chips going into all tv sets.
a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. There are no rights
anymore, and now we see what happens when the soul of a
country is lost: suppression of free speech, indentured
servitude to the credit card companies and the medical/
industrial complex, loss of habeus corpus, destruction of
the environment, the list is endless. These people will stop
at nothing, as evidenced by blatant rigging the electoral
process,
The way things are going, soon TalkBack will be illegal.
Very, very, very, very sad.
Report your neighbor who is in advertising for trying to convince to vote for his/her candidate, illegally.
Guerrilla marketing by an industry insider is actually a service contribution to the candidate's campaign.
At the very least, all neighbors (friends and family, too) must be forced to preface all political statements or participation in discussions or conservations with a disclosure statement that identifies their party registration, cash contributions, and whether their expenditure of hot air has been 'approved by the candidate' they are about to support.
Only seems fair.
Art Keating
Boca Raton, FL
Give us a break, Bradley.
Why don't you fellows invade the bingo parlors of America, where real political realities are likely discussed?
How about the office water coolers and lunch rooms across our free, democratic land?
You citizens best hush up. No discussing or promoting politics. And no blogging.
The FEC might be listening.
Advocate
http://tinyurl.com/5e92l
mark d.
Look, I barely eek out a living as it is. But with the Bush people giving me hundreds of dollars extra last year for re-printing their material in my blog, I was able to get along a lot more comfortably.
And now the liberals on some committee are going to take that away from me?
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OK, not really. But I could totally imagine something like that going on. While I think this trend smacks of censorship - and worse, censorship of political opinion by a government agency - I can see some of the fundamentals that they are trying to put a stop to. It reminds me of the concept of "walking around money".
I look at the internet blogs more like on line conversations that talk about all kinds of stuff. Will there be a ban on talking about cats? Will there be a pennalty that has to be paid to the local Humane Society if we talk about Mane ***** instead of Tabby's? Watch Dogging Internet converstaions would be like pennalizing thinking. When friends talk to each other, is their a charge? What's next, Banning cell phone text messaging?
I am waiting for some uniformed person to come up and say "Show Me Your Papers". Come ON Sheesh!!!
You can bet that I will be writing everybody I can to see this through.
Regulation of political speech on the Internet is simply a way of telling those of us who have an uncomfortable opinion to "go away" lest we disturb the masses.
That's about as unAmerican as it gets folks.
I'm a blogger and my blog is located at: http://www.opengeek.org
Google search for OpenGeek or goto opengeek dot org.
What is next? Taking a stand on an issue that obviously supports what one candidate believes over another? The thought police cannot be allowed to take over, but a lot of people are going to have to take some undeserved punishment before the majority are going to take notice.
- I don't get it.
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by
March 3, 2005 12:23 PM PST
- Both parties have spent hundreds of millions of dollars.
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See all 130 Comments >>I wonder what blogs cost them.
Are their even paid bloggers?
If it's free it's not right?
Come on this could save money or at least be an inexpensive alternative.
It's a great way of expressing free speech and reaches many people.
I really believe the political elite and the large media corporations are seeing the bloggers as a legitimate threat.
What threat? Knowledge is power and we may just be empowered. The politicians may just be held accountable.
Times are changing and some don't like the direction?
We have a right to hear the truth.
We have a right to decide the truth for ourselves.
We have the right to speak the truth.
Frank,