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..."

Comments

Silly rabbit, Trix are for...

[lukewarmfusion]

I just got a note from my neighborhood association stating that, while the neighborhood covenant specifically prohibits them, the Supreme Court has ruled that signs for political candidates are protected speech and cannot be overruled by neighborhood agreements (contractual or not).

If they're going to regulate political speech from candidates, that's one thing. That's not regulation of the Internet, but regulation of campaigns no matter where they are executed. Regulating political speech on the Internet for the regular user won't happen - not likely in theory and definitely not in reality.

Re:Internet ads should be treated like TV and prin

[CdBee]

So how do you stop "anonymous" campaign sites springing up and propagating by spam or google-bomb?

gwbushsucks.cx or similar (made-up URL, not a real site as far as I am aware) might be hard to trace to an identifiable political body

Re:I nominate the McCain-Feingold...

[coltrane679]

BINGO, you've got it. Supported by "progressives", passed by a Republican Congress, signed by GWB--the warning signs were all there. Now blessed by the Supreme Court, it will serve as the cornerstone of new legal edifices to "protect" our beloved "two-party system" against new media and information technologies.

Re:Then I AM protected in saying THIS:

[davidsyes]

Well, free speech is not merely vocal activity, but locomotion to a place or activity (organized or not). What good is free speech if one is prevented from traveling? This election will probably be one of THE most important in US history, and ear-bud-using candidates, bunglers, and inept types should not have the chance to incite MORE OUTUS resentment of the US. (Maybe changing our foreign policy will ease things a bit, and if the government sees terrorists as "nits" or mobsters who are the "cost of doing business with a minimum of destruction on either side", then we might not have to raise the topic of Free Speech, travel restrictions for non-terrorists getting onto but being unable to remove themselves from hatched/half-baked Do Not Fly Lists, being subjected to DHLS scrutiny, and such...)

OK...

Let's see how the hell well THIS goes down in a presidential election year, given the past 4 years of events and the two candidates and their respective set pieces poised to either calm down or inflame the world toward the USA.

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The FEC or the people running the debates, NEED to raise this before the candidates:
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Citizens of ANY nation who fear being squelched, have their travel impeded, or be subjected to the US Do Not Fly List should demand that airlines GUARANTEE that if they are for some reason on the DNFL, they can receive a FULL refund on the SAME DAY they are denied flight. NO amount of chicanery, delayed notification, or the like should be permitted whether by collusion or indepent act between or of the flight or travel entities and/or the various governments, particularly the US and the DHLS entities.

This (potentially) will have some side-effects of:

-undermining "gold-digging" agencies from spuriously ore punitively or pugnaciously punishing political activitst

-undermining the ability of DHLS to simply put on the list anyone, anywhere, anytime with impunity and without a requirement to explain WHY said person is on the list or HOW to be extricated

-undermining the ability of DHLS to keep indefinitely on the list anyone who challenges it and demands being removed from it

-forcing airlines to take a stand on what information will and will NOT be shared on so-called security info-hunts, and forcing them to help booking passengers avert the inconvenience of erroneous/no-fault DHLS attachment/listing

-forcing airlines to revise their policy of "once you have the customers'/customer's money never give it back" (an activitiy even BEFORE the Star Trek DS9 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition), for the money should NEVER belong to a company until the goods are DELIVERED and USED, not just "booked", when it comes to DHLS obstruction to using a booked flight

--forcing the public to acknowledge that NO DNFL list of any sort should be used to persecute or intimidate ANY domestic or foreign national who has never even been arrested, never consorted with violent persons, never even killed anyone in self-defense or any other circumstance, never been hand-cuffed, never had called into question their prior or current service with any level of government service, classified work or not; persons with records that don't rise to a level of concern for safety of flying or operational aircraft should also not be on the list: unless they frequent terrorist training camps in a non-journalistic capacity; unless they are by familial, economic, pact or other modes connected to terrorists or terrorism-sponsoring nations (would that mean several members of the current and past US administrations SHOULD be on the DNFL, since we KNOW some of them shook hands with, rendered decisions to or enabled some of these terrorists to rise in power? (Oh, our taxes already pay for their private flights and security entourages...)

Forcing the airlines to face the prospect of losing passengers for inexplicable or nebulous or obscure or ad-hoc/whimsical reasons --other than "subject is on the DNFL for PROVEN, LISTED REASONS" will force them to technologic