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FEC May Regulate Online Political Activity
jgarzik writes "A recent federal court ruling ordered the U.S. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to rewrite rules that currently exempt, rather than regulate, political ads and speech on the Internet. Well, it's looking more and more likely that the FEC will not be able to avoid some amount of Internet regulation. I always thought that freedom of speech originated in part because the framers wanted to protect political speech. I guess I was being naive..."
If the FEC is currently regulating radio, TV and print ads, it should do so for Internet. The regulation has to do with coordination between candidates and PACs as well as spending levels and sources. The first amendment was not meant to protect your right to say anything, anywhere, anytime, so yes, you are naive. Supreme Court justices of all political bents have ruled that their are limits. In this case, the FEC helps provide a level playing field to *protect* our democracy from people yielding undue influence based on the size of their pockets.
You're nuts...
Are you saying that if bill gates wanted to spend $500,000,000.00 in advertising on google, amazon, ebay, msn, slashdot, etc., that you'd be able to match him to express _your_ opinion?
i doubt it.
It seems to me that, typically, the people who complain the most vociferously about restrictions to political speech are also the ones who complain most vociferously about the presumed influence special-interest money has on the political process. Can't have it both ways. Free and unfettered speech means living with big money, and eliminating money from the equation necessarily means restricting free speech.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
History has shown time and time again that it's hard to write laws and regulations to "level a playing field" without accdentally writing in exploitable loopholes. It's really the same sort of problem as the difficulty of writing secure software.
Attempts to do this may well backfire and amplify the power of those with deep pockets -- they will be in a much better position to afford the lawyer time to look for loopholes in the laws and regulations, use them, and then defend that use in court.
And as the regulations are incrementally patched to fix each loophole, they will increase in complexity, increasing the risks that the well-intentioned little guy will accidentally break them and end up muzzled.
There's no good answer here, alas.
I feel much better about regulations requiring a public audit trail of where the money came from and where it went, rather than attempting to create complex rules and "soft", "hard", etc., classes of money and donors.
The first amendment was not meant to protect your right to say anything, anywhere, anytime, so yes, you are naive.
First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What part of "Congress shall make no law" don't you understand? It didn't say "Congress shall make no law except where it *really really* needs to. You either have free speech or your don't. Once you start limiting, there is no stopping how much you limit it.
Brian
The Supreme Court, the group the Constitution created to interpret the laws, correctly have held that there are limits to speech that a free and safe society must have. The old "can't yell fire in a crowded theater" adage and inciting a riot. I'm not saying that limits on political speech fit in there, but if the FEC has been held as constutionally allowed to regulate political speech, then no matter how sarcastic you try to be with "what part of...don't you understand", it doesn't change how the U.S. works. I completely disagree that free speech is black and white as you say. It sounds like you would allow someone to say libelous, slanderous, or "fire in a theater" speech. Sorry - the slippery slope you see doesn't exist.
I guess I was being naive...
What's naive is granting free speech (and all other human rights) to corporations as if they were "persons" and then wondering why the whole system went to hell. We wouldn't need this kind of regulation if only corporations were treated as the legal fiction they are. Allowing corporations to roam our society with all the rights of a person exposes us to ultra-wealthy psychopaths.
A lot of money buys a lot of "free" speech. Real persons have no chance in hell of competing with corporations on the "free" speech playing field. It's time we recognized reality and revoked these misplaced rights and overturned the fallacy that corporations are persons.
Remember "No Face" from Spirited Away? Best to keep them out of the bath house.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
"The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now." - Robert Anton Wilson
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
What part of "Congress shall make no law" don't you understand?
You're taking the naive approach to freedom of speech. There is a concept that has been around for a very long time, and which the courts have hammered out quite clearly as the standard interpretation of the first ammendment called "protected speech".
If, for example, protected speech included everything you say or communicate in any way, then assault WOULD NOT BE ILLEGAL. Assault is clearly a case of laws being passed which restrict speech. Why should I not be allowed to say, "I'm going to kill you at 5PM tomorrow"? Why? because it's not protected speech.
Political speech is, for the most part, studiously protected, but there are strong exceptions when it comes to the funding that speech and consuming massive amounts of advertising "real eastate". These are reasonable measures taken to prevent one canidate from "buying" and election (and, in fact, I feel they're not strong enough as they do not prevent a small handfull of candidates from locking in an election among them).
If free speech were an absolute, a large fraction of the laws in this country at the federal and state levels would have been shot down by the Supreme Court over a century ago.
I don't want George Soros or the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush to have more free speech than I do. I want them to have exactly the same amount, regardless of how much money they have or can gather. Simply because I get paid more than someone else does and can contribute more to someone's kitty for political ads doesn't mean that my views should be more widely disseminated.
Free and unfettered speech means living with big money, and eliminating money from the equation necessarily means restricting free speech.
Except that corporations are considered "persons" under the law (with all the rights that entails), are psychopaths , and are vastly more wealthy than real persons. Their vast wealth is swamping the speech of real persons and elevating their agenda over the agenda of the people.
Corporations are not persons.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
There is one big difference that needs to be taken into account. The Internet is an open medium, compared to TV and radio which require a significant investment to get on air. Some guy in his garage can host a website for pennies a day. For a little more, he can even handle a heavy volume of hits. He can also write a blog for free, etc. Let see him produce a TV show. Because of the diversity of opinion on the Internet, it is a whole different beast. With TV and radio a handful of conglomerates own about 80-90% of TV stations, and I don't know about radio, but it consolidates everytime congress eases the ownership rules. This puts a lot of power in to a few hands, either the owners or people that can afford time. Think of it this way. If everyone was a billionaire, we wouldn't need campaign finance reform. It helps level the playing field. The nature of the Internet already levels the paying field, so why regulate it. ...Michael...