Slashdot Mirror
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..."
I demand equal time in flamewars! No "keRry SI teH SUxx0rS omgROfLmaolololoOLOL!!!21!1@11!" should ever go unanswered!
Won't be able to lie anymore on the internet?
politics stink.
* In order to conform to future FEC regulations on online political speech: I'm nharmon, and I approve this message.
by the new bureaucracy needed to regulate and enforce the Campaign Finance laws.
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.
In other news, the servers of an online community called Slashdot were bombed by the USAF for "gross violations of goverment regulations"
Film at 11. Stolen Honor at first, Fahrenheit 9/11 after commercial break.
Hate me!
The first amendment was not meant to protect your right to say anything, anywhere, anytime...
Actually.. it was...
campaign finance laws place no restrictions on polititcians, only select voters. Politicians are still free to lie. ;-)
How do they expect to regulate something that is beyond huge? Sarcastic comment to follow: Oh, I know, they can bring in Internet-2, getting rid of Internet-1.
...incumbent protection act as the second shittiest piece of legislation in recent years, right behind the patriot act.
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.
If you RTFA, once again, you'll find the submitter has no idea what they're talking about:
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington ordered the FEC to rewrite 15 rules, including regulations exempting Internet ads from the 2002 campaign finance law. The law bars outside groups from coordinating television and radio advertisements with candidates.
To exempt certain types of communications runs completely afoul of this basic tenet of campaign finance law,'' Kollar- Kotelly said in a 157-page ruling. Two members of Congress filed the complaint that led to the decision.
This has entirly to do with campaign finance, and whether Internet ads are included (or excluded) from campaign finance. It has nothing to do with free speech.
I sorta like the INGSOC logo and look forward to the return of black uniforms, patent leather and skulls.
Camo green is so passe.
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
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
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.
I always thought that freedom of speech originated in part because the framers wanted to protect political speech. I guess I was being naive...
Yes, they wanted to protect political speech. That is speech from a private citizen regarding the government. That is currently still supposedly the most protected speech there is. Someone running for office is *not* involved with political speech. The candidate is a public figure that is involved with the government from the moment that they start running. As such, they are regulated similarly to a political figure.
I know it is a contrary to common sense, but speech related to running for a political office made by the candidate is not political speech.
Learn to love Alaska
Just go to Google Groups aka USENET aka NNTP servers. Search for KERRY SUCKS or BUSH SUCKS (might add President to the later.)
This is only applying to the political candidates - not individuals such as most of us.
The parent is right, the poster didn't actually read the article they were posting about. If you want campaign finance reform to work, even the slightly-less-broken one we have now, then it needs to apply everywhere.
Money in politics is like Radon in my house, seeps in through every tiny crack and kills me slowly...
From the article:
"I don't think anybody here wants to impede the free flow of information over the Internet," Weintraub said. "The question then is, where do you draw the line?"
This statement makes no sense. I could see regulating the flow of money, but that is obviously not the issue here. The issue is at what point do they impose rules on SPEECH. The money will still flow from the corporations to the political parties, but we will no longer be allowed our little sandbox of freedom.A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was
lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a
boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you
help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour
ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied,
"You're in a hot air balloon approximately 30 feet
above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level.
You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude
and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."
She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a
Democrat."
"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything
you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea
what to do with your information, and I'm still lost.
Frankly, you've not been much help to me."
The man smiled and responded, "You must be a
Republican."
"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you
know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where
you are or where you're going. You've risen to where
you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a
promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you
expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the
same position you were in before we met but, somehow,
now it's my fault."
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.
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
I see no problems with that, so long as everyone is able to do it.
The only threat the printed word has is that it can be controlled, and that's just what the FEC is proposing.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
It's a file that I have on my computer.
I told some other people where I keep my file, and I let them come look at if they want.
If there's too many people looking at my file on my computer, I may pay my friend with a bigger computer to keep my file for me. And if some people want to look at my file, I may send them to my friend, who is keeping my file on his computer.
So, you see, it isn't speech at all.
It's property.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
1, This is a republic, not a democracy. and 2, the framers explicitely stated the intent of the first amendment was specifically to protect freedom of political speech. This was in responce to it being criminal, and treasonous to speak ill of the king.
If you genuinly believe that finance reform requires muting constituents, then I suggest you relocate to cuba, where you can enjoy a form of government that agrees with you fully.
Its just like a complicated tax code; people find, exploit and profit off of loopholes and an unneccessarily complicated system. Make the system simple (flat tax for example) and stupid things like this don't happen. Let the candidates take as much money from whoever they want and spend it in any way they please and you'll find these awful "side-effects" of dumb legislation go away. You can't tell people how to spend their money and suggesting that gagging political organizations (or in the Sinclair/Moorse cases passionate individuals) during some artifical timeframe before an election is appropriate is simply unacceptable.
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
How can the FEC 'regulate' political web sites that are hosted in other countries than the US?
oh, yea, so they can stop corruption in elections like they did with the federal election process and television campaigning?
(+1 sarcastic)
(-1 funny)
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
"The first amendment was not meant to protect your right to say anything, anywhere, anytime"
Actually the first amendment does allow you to say anything, anywhere, anytime, but due to the courts believing that the framers of the consitution couldn't have possible meant ALL speech, they have contrued it to mean what you said. So know we live in a censored society, where speech is anything BUT free!
"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."
"Abridge (v. t.) To make shorter; to shorten in duration; to lessen; to diminish; to curtail"
Someone circle the word "abridge" in the dictionary and mail it to Congress.
They're talking about regulating the ads used by the different campaigns and them working with groups like 509's.
Hardly a "OMG MY RIGHTS" issue.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Another attepted by the unknowing to led what they do not understand. They will pass their laws, they will rattle their chains, they will bang their fist and in the end what will it mean. Zip and shit is what it will mean.
Look at that past few years of what all the attemps to control the Internet have done. Not much. They have tried to stop music on the net. It is still there just as available as it always was. They have tried to stop the spread of pornographics, legal and illegal, it failed. Porn is just as available as before. They have tried to curb pirated software, that has failed too.
All their rule and regulations may take out chunks, such as napster, but in the end what did it too. Everything that has been baned or regulated is still just as available to those of us who know where to get it.
There has been attempts to control free speach on the net before. They failed and this one will fail too. It is that simple.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Just look twords McCain-Finegold Campaign Finance Reform, where they restricted a canidate from running any ads one month before the election. But all these other groups such as the MediaFund, MoveOn.org, VietnamVets, etc. don't have to abide by those rules. So in essence the canidate can't go out and use free speech to promote him/her self (i.e. bash the other guy with attack ads at the time it matters the most). But groups that don't nessisary relay what the campaign beleives can go out and bash the other guy.
:)
This is a huge problem, because the power has shifted from groups that tried to accomplish something (i.e. NAACP, AARP, etc.) no longer are in the power seats of the campaign. Now it is a group that only wants to accomplish getting the other guy out of the way and putting their guy in office.
McCain-Finegold was a big slap across the face of the founders, because John McCain didn't want to be critized so much like he was in the 2000 election.
So this is nothing new, the people just have to throw these guys out of office that want to limit any kind of free speech. Howard Stern has just as many rights to be on the radio as Rush Limbaugh, and the option to change the channel is always there if you don't like what the person is saying. WE NEED TO STOP LOOKING TWORDS THE WHINY PEOPLE THAT WANT TO GET RID OF SOMETHING INSTEAD OF CHANGING THE CHANNEL.
I say send a message, by hitting them where it hurts, their wallet. Don't listen to the show, so the advertising numbers will go down and pull out.
I am starting to think it would be a lot better if we paid polititions to stay out of office.
I guess that's why Slashdot's been 503 so much lately, it's the FEC regulating the Politics topic.
Money for nothing, pix for free
I've already seen ads designed to walk a fine line on campaign finance. They go something like this:
Candidate B is a bad man! Click here to help us raise money to stop him by donating to Candidate A.
The message is clearly intended to sway the viewer, but they technically are fund raisers, not advertisements. In other words, campaign laws shouldn't apply to them in the same way they apply to TV or print ads.
I've seen these come out of both parties and their respective PACs. It is the same argument used to defend Michael Moore. "This is different because we're making money... not spending it."
I'm embarassed that our politicians and political organizations are so willing to follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law. And I'm sure we'll see many more laws trying to reign in abusers. And we are just as likely to see a lot of new creativity to skirt the laws that are implimented.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The rules have to be fair.
I agree about your controls on the candidates selection of domains insofar as they don't take those their opponents would have. I don't think, though, that any individual or grassroots organization should be restricted. And that's where the confusion and subterfuge begins, precisely where the individual has a chance to be heard.
Complicated. So: I don't think the FEC should get involved where it is unclear and could restrict the individuals right to be heard with as strong a voice as the Republicrats'.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
They'll just put ads on the BBC website and tell the FEC to stick it.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
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.
This has entirly to do with campaign finance, and whether Internet ads are included (or excluded) from campaign finance. It has nothing to do with free speech.
"Campaign finance" is a proxy for regulating speech. It's what the political class is using to stifle criticism. There are jail terms associated with broadcasting a political message that regulators do not approve of, now. The framers must be turning over in their graves.
This is the very speech that the 1st amendment was designed to protect. Not nude dancing, not obscenity, not flag burning, but political speech is what they were trying to protect. How can the 1st amendment be so expansive as to include those other things, but not the intended object of protection?
"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."
So I'm the only one here that thinks that having incumbent politicians in charge of voter education is a really, really bad idea?
Or then there's this angle: If citizens can't be trusted to make the "correct" decision come election time in the middle of a sea of misinformation, why are we even bothering to let them vote at all?
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.
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.
Wrong. That power was self-invested by the Supreme Court in the Marbury vs. Madison case in 1803, as an act of partisan politics against the Jeffersonian Republicans. Nowhere in the Constitution is any court given the power to "interpret" law.
So, what you're saying is... the First Amendent is wrong? That is what you're saying, because the First Amendment patently disagrees with you.
Now if we're gonna argue about whether or not the First Amendment means what it says, then I'll just go ahead and suggest we ought to make the Presbyterian Church in America the offical religion of the US, since the Constitution isn't supposed to be taken literally, or anything.
Well yes, that is what the framers wanted. You don't equate the FCC of 2004 with the framers of the Constitution do you?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Once you start limiting, there is no stopping how much you limit it.
That is known as a slippery slope fallacy. There are, as another post puts it (in different words), reasonable and unreasonable limits. There are also different levels of protections based on what kind of speech.
While your argument has a point, free speech doesn't protect you from a libel or slander suit if you said something that was libelous or slanderous. The incitement claim is pretty valid too. You can't expect to use your freedom to deliberately hurt others without merit and expect there be no legal consequences. The constitution apparently can't be used to protect a right to lie, there really doesn't seem to be one.
Another example, if you take your first Amendment claim and apply it to the second, wouldn't you argue that the Federal government has no claim to prevent you from owning fully automatic machine guns? Or SAMs or fighter airplanes for that matter?
I've said this before, and I'll say it again
Money is not Speech
> get tea
No Tea: dropped.
The slippery slope will exist if I post non-slanderous content on my site negative of a major candidate and I am forcibly shut down, address the issue to the courts as an abridgement of free speech and then do not win.
just 2c
-nB
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True enough. However, the First Amendment WAS meant to protect your right to political speech, i.e. advertising in favour of your favoured candidate.
This particular slippery slope reached its own inversion point when the BCFRA (Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, aka McCain-Feingold) became law a couple years ago. Since that Act was specifically aimed at regulating political speech (can't mention a candidate by name within 60 days of a General Election, for instance, except as specifically allowed, i.e. in newscasts, or as regulated by the FEC), and was largely approved by the People, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial branches, it would seem that the First Amendment has been redefined as being (nearly) unlimited for everything but political purposes, but tightly restricted when it comes to poitics.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court overturned the 1st amendment last year.6 74.pdf
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1
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?
So, why didn't we have President Forbes? If money can buy an election that way, why did it not happen? Remember, he ran before McCain-Feingold.
I am not sure that bloggers should be so regulated any more than word of mouth campaigning by various groups should be blocked.
However, it seems to me that there is a difference between free expression and large-money campaigning before elections. So while I would not be unhappy about regulations regarding paid advertisements, it seems to me that blogging and other forms of free expression should be protected. It should be noted, however, that this is not a big issue.
Also political and commercial spam should be equally banned under the law, IMO. Mass-emailing opt-out or even one-time campaigns should not be an acceptable practice in business or politics. IMO, we should ensure that all such email is opt-in only.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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.
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I think that says all you need to know about the worldview this is catering to. Or are you going to try and defend Coulter and O'Reilly?
You either have free speech or your don't. Once you start limiting, there is no stopping how much you limit it.
The more money you have the more "free" speech you can buy. Corporations are inaccurately classified as "persons" under the law so they get the same rights as real persons. Corporations have way more money than real persons so they pretty much own "free" speech. These silly laws that nip at the edges of our free speech rights are necessary to preserve the fiction that corporations are "persons."
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
"Another example, if you take your first Amendment claim and apply it to the second, wouldn't you argue that the Federal government has no claim to prevent you from owning fully automatic machine guns? Or SAMs or fighter airplanes for that matter?"
Yes, I fully support any type or gun ownership, without restriction!
Another example, if you take your first Amendment claim and apply it to the second, wouldn't you argue that the Federal government has no claim to prevent you from owning fully automatic machine guns? Or SAMs or fighter airplanes for that matter?
At certain points in history, all 3 of those items were fully legal within the United States. Full auto machine guns were regulated in 1934, and new manufacture for non-military/law enforcement was banned in 1986. Fighter airplanes, I believe, can still be purchased (assuming you have the money to fuel and maintain the beast), although arming it is another matter entirely. You also need to repaint the markings to comply with FAA marking regulations. Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) - well, you can't import any, due to ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) restrictions. However, you could probably build one, although I'm unsure of domestic regulations concerning posession of such a device.
Well, if it is property then you can expect your file to be taxed for the value that file has at each transaction, and you can expect your ability to share your property to be regulated by the government via the powers invested in it by the commerce clause. Oh yeah, did your file include sufficient access for disabled users, and was it produced according to OSHA safety regulations? You do have the paperwork, right?
Regulating radio, TV, and print ads within the US is easy to do because any organized advertising campaign will leave tracks and the media outlets can be subpoenaed. Regulating political ads on the internet is a whole different matter. How cooperative do you think the Chinese ISPs will be when the US FEC starts asking questions about who is paying for the smithsuxaspres.org website?
>
> 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.
"That's not a bug, it's a feature!"
- Some Lawyer Dude
re 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?
Google is presumably not subject to graft if you are referring to the results of searches done using their software (in any ostensible way).
As for the rest, they are all subject to the mitigating effect people's affinity for personal blogs. Compared to whatever banners MS puts up and however much their marketing campaigns spend, popular discourse has considerable power if you visit the opinion sites. I use that as a model to assess the power of Bill's billions to influence opinion.
However, I have to admit, I'm immune to "infotainment" of the big networks, since I don't have a tv and don't make a habit of going to FOX, MSN, ABC, CNN, or whatever. I let discussions guide my searches.
If you don't do that you are more easily influenced by what the networks choose not to show you.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
I'm embarassed that our politicians and political organizations are so willing to follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law. And I'm sure we'll see many more laws trying to reign in abusers. And we are just as likely to see a lot of new creativity to skirt the laws that are implimented.
What's embarassing is that they need to jump through such hoops. As I pointed out in another comment, we don't have President Steve Forbes. Unless you enact very comprehensive, draconian rules, people will try to get around them.
And they should! Why should I, and others who agree with me, not be able to pool our money and buy an ad? Even if it is within 30 days of the election and says something that the political class doesn't like?
Court ruling only directs FEC to examine online advertisements, not, as the summary claims, speech online. Thus, the FEC has merely been directed to monitor compliance with campaign advertising restrictions currently applicable in meatspace.
I don't think the FEC should be wasting tax dollars fretting over the internet.
Television and radio ads are effectively because they are active advertising. The consumer _must_ participate in the advertisement in order to get back to normal programming. The advertisement takes 100% of the media stream. There are no ads for Kerry or Bush playing in the background while Metallica is playing in the foreground.
Advertising on the internet is much different. Let them spend all they want on internet advertising. Google will love it, Yahoo will love it, MSN will love it... but the consumers? Really I don't think internet advertising has much impact. I'm positive that search engines and launchpad websites can produce hundreds of studies to prove me wrong but their business relies on convincing people to spend money on internet ads. To the regular consumer, however, it's all too easy to ignore banner ads and get to the real content on a page. I have yet to meet anyone who has tried a new product or service due to internet advertising. I've bought things that were reviewed (eg. books) on a network bulletin board, but I've never bought anything from a paid advertisement. Internet advertising is passive advertising because it requires the consumer to willingly participate in the advertisement. If Bush or Kerry want to spend a billion dollars employing web monkeys to write a webpage then that's good for jobs and the economy. Unless they (illegally) hijack my browser, though, I'm still not going to view it.
So, again, why is the FEC wasting our taxpayer dollars arguing over 15 rules and trying to make them wrap around the internet?
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Because once we started down the dark path with the first limits on the 1st Amendment in the post Watergate era this sort of mission creep was foretold. Regulating campaign finance IS regulating Free Speech. Democrats refuse to understand and keep proposing more laws when the previous ones fail. Shrub is equally (hell, moreso) culpable this time because he KNEW it was wrong and signed it anyway for coldly political purposes.
But let me say this. I will never submit to any law regulating my speech, and when the time comes that the Democrats pass a law that does infringe my speech, and it gets upheld, that is the day I use the 2nd Amendment to invoke that most primal right so well expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."
Democrat delenda est
And FEATURE is the best license plate I've ever seen on a VW Bug.
i am a soviet space shuttle
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.
------
The FEC or the people running the debates, NEED to raise this before the candidates:
---------
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
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
So, how is the FCC going to stop people setting up websites on offshore webservers? Even if they might be able to stop US residents and US companies from doing this, they certainly will have a hard time stopping foreigners.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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!
Outsourced IT professionals unite!!!!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Making a President responsible for his actions. Perhaps a post-Presidency approval system, and if the person fails to get 50% approval, no pension, no perks, etc.
I can't believe that the American people will continue to stand for much more. I know I won't.
Yes, you will -- and the American people will too. The fact that you are bitching on Slashdot rather than doing anything constructive indicates that you will. Mainstream politicians know this, and use it to their advantage. If enough people were outraged, they would vote for a third-party candidate who would do what they wanted, but they won't for two reasons:
What is even more telling is that this article on campaign finance reform was misinterpreted as an attack on free speech. People who cannot understand the difference between regular laws such as this (which merely regulates previously-regulated campaigns, not The Internet), and evil laws (such as the INDUCE Act or the DMCA) are unlikely to mount an effective resistance against any laws, good or bad. And no, I don't count posting a Slashdot comment as "effective resistance".
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Guess I'll have to check the Web Server Logs to see if anyone surfs to the Hulk for President Site from fcc.gov or usdoj.gov ...
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I can see them regulating PAID ads just as they do any other, but in terms of personal expression - chat rooms, blogs, etc. that would be "chilling" and clearly not allowed under any reasonable view of the consitution.
In the more gray area would be online commerical speach since the courts tend to view commmerical speach rights as being less than those of actual humans.
http://www.hawknest.com/
eliminating money from the equation necessarily means restricting free speech.
Granting free, scheduled time on the publicly owned airwaves to all candidates on the ballot would put a serious dent in the power of unbalanced money.
The solution -- so often the case -- is more speech, not less.
The argument that the decisions are stifling free speech is weak if you RTFA. The court ruled that regulations on political advertising in place on TV radio and print should be applied to the internet in order to prevent organizations from spending far much more money on advertisements than their opponents. It doesn't prevent ordinary joes from blogging their hearts out about politics.
Ummm...is that John Ashcroft knocking at your door? Nah, he'll let this one go because you only threatened Democrats.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Get rid of the money factor. Give'em the ability to raise unlimited funds to buy all the airtime they want. They're all in the back pockets of corporations anyway, and really - if someone gives you a Million dollars are you gonna tell'em to go screw because this other guy gave you two Million?
Get rid of the money factor and people will become so jaded "free political speech" on the airwaves will have zero value (if it doesn't already).
Campaign finance laws essentially say that political speech is DIFFERENT than "regular" speech. The implication is that is is harmful; else why does it need to be regulated?
I don't really agree with that, but there seem to be other precedents. "Hate speech," for example. Which I also think is a bad idea. People should be prosecuted for their actions, not their thoughts.
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...
It isn't speech at all.
It's a file that I have on my computer.
When you're done with your sophmoric semantic quibbling, you can try applying the same idiot logic to, say, newsprint. "It's not speech, these are ink marks on a piece of paper." Speech is not an effect of the media used to transmit it, but the intermediation of ideas from one interlocutor to another regardless of medium.
blog
I hope this will teach all of you that campaign finance reform is a joke. Everything that has been tried since the Nixon administration has only made it harder for non-incumbents to run for office. You now have to have a lawyer and an accountant on staff to run for any kind of office to avoid getting in trouble with all the laws.
Now they are going to regulate the Internet. Thanks guys!
> People should be prosecuted for their actions,not > their thoughts. Physical or not, speech is an action (which can cause other actions...). I'd rather lock up the person who says "I'm going to kill you" before they actually kill you; however it's easier to get a conviction with an actual dead body as evidence...
Dr. Rick
- "It's such a fine line between clever and stupid" (Nigel Tufnel)
- Zort! (Pinky)
Please show me your evidence that campaign finance reform has accomplished "protecting our democracy from people yielding undue influence based on the size of thier pockets." I see lots of regulations of speech, and no results.
"What is even more telling is that this article on campaign finance reform was misinterpreted as an attack on free speech."
Right, you can say all you want as long as you don't spend any money to deliver the message, I think I can see how people might "misinterpret" the intention of campaign "finance reform".
Does anyone remember that guy that set up a web page on his server that was either pro or anti someone and the FEC went after him considering the cost of the computer and internet connection were over some threshold of spending that required him to register as a PAC. Register? If I buy a printing press and start printing leaflets, suddenly I need to pre register because of the content of my speech or face penalties or prison. Tell me how this isn't a prior restraint on the content of my speech? I dare ya.
Campaign finance "reform" and the restricitive regulations that come with it will only benefit entrenched politicians and interests. If you believe otherwise you are very naive.
Have to say it:
Fahrenheit 911: facts never disputed. Mike's still waiting for someone to dispute:
Bush's connections with the Sauds, the 7 minute wait (actually more like 19 - there was a photo session after "My Pet Goat"), the redirection of the "war" from AQ to Saddam with baseless accusations, the creation of a police state, the profiteering, the ignored death of the Iraqi civilians, the SS guarding the Saudi embassy... it's all true, and frankly not exactly news to people who read the news every day. The 'pubs HATE Moore, but that is not a contention of the facts.
They can't contend with the facts, so they go for the man.
Stolen Honor: accusers were discredited, facts nonexistent, pure ad hominem by political opponents. One of the signed vets was never told he had signed the accusation, a surprise to him. Not a "disputed" matter except in the minds of the operatives and those who want to believe the accusers.
The distinction made at first was between speech which violated another's rights, and speech which did not.
Just as you do have the right to own books, you do not have the right to beat someone over the head with that book.
The distinction of when speech violated another's rights was usually made based upon whether an action was indicated by the words ("I'm going to shoot you"). Once you have declared an intent, it's not prior restraint to prevent you from doing it.
Keep in mind that the standards of proof for speech are quite high: you have to have strong evidence that someone said something, and the meaning implied. What is written is prized over what is spoken, as it's relayed in the format delivered (speech remembered is not spoken in the same way or by the same person, letters are read as they were written).
As for libel and slander, those are civil actions between private citizens, not criminal prosecution by the government. You can't go to jail for libel and slander, and someone has to prove that you said/wrote what they claim, and that what you claim is both harmful and not true. It's actually quite difficult to win a slander or libel case in the US.
Now, consider, with political speech: the government fines you within an administrative court, the fine is for speaking about something in some way - whether or not it is true. This is an entirely different class of "wrongdoing" than the others.
"The O`Reilly Factor for Kids
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Wow. Until I went and checked, that particular item in your list made me unsure of whether or not you were being serious.
You think my right to call you every night at 3AM and threaten to kill you is protected by the first amendment?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Campaign finance reform is worked on by the people who have the most to lose from it, so it's best to be wary, but to interpret a law that merely says campaigns, which are already regulated on the radio and TV, should be regulated on the Internet as well, as a law regulating free speech on the Internet, is overreaction.
Your answer, from Google. I don't know if this is the specific instance you quoted, but as shown below, the laws have been decided in favor of free speech, at least in this case.
Citizens for Property Rights did not violate state election law when it ran a series of newspaper advertisements critical of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, according to a July 10 decision by special prosecutor D. Scott Bailey.
"While it is true that many of these advertisements did target specific office holders, each was still tied to the overarching stated purpose of Citizens for Property Rights, that being land use issues in Loudoun County," Bailey wrote in his decision.
"This was an unmitigated victory for CPR, for its members, for the taxpayers," said CPR director Patricia Shockey. "It was a good thing for everyone in Loudoun that we won this fight for the first Amendment, for free speech. If people cannot criticize the government, there's a real problem."
Allegations that CPR violated state election laws by not registering as a political action committee were filed in Feb. 2002 by the PAC Voters to Stop Sprawl. VSS alleged that CPR ran a political campaign through a series of newspaper advertisements, and should have registered itself as a PAC. VSS claimed that CPR was funded by developers, and was keeping its membership out of the public eye by not registering as a PAC. Members of CPR said the group is a registered private non-stock corporation and as such is not required to register as a PAC.
Among the targets of the CPR advertisements were individual members of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, special interest groups which have supported the Board's "smart growth" polices, including the Piedmont Environmental Council and Sustainable Loudoun Network, and VSS, the largest contributor to the 1999 campaigns of seven Supervisors.
"Look at what special interest groups are deciding Loudoun's future," said the headline on one full-page advertisement CPR ran in October, 2000. The ads included Supervisors home phone numbers. According to Bailey, CPR's ads stayed within the boundaries of Virginia state election law.
"I would state that several of your client's ads do seem to step right up to the dividing line between an advocacy group and a political action committee," Bailey wrote to CPR lawyer Peter White. "It is possible that future literature in the same vein may in fact step over such a line, bringing your client to the other side. To date, however, such does not appear to be the case."
While Bailey said he was bringing to an end the 17-month investigation, the three-year-old war of words between CPR and VSS officials continued this week.
"Everyone knows that CPR is a front for financial special interests," said VSS founder Joe Maio. "Their hiding their donors identities reinforces everyone's perceptions."
"Joe Maio brought this action in an attempt to discredit CPR," Shockey said. "This was a frivolous lawsuit. It costs us thousands and thousands of dollars because VSS and the PEC wanted us to not have the ability to criticize the Board of Supervisors."
Shockey said members of her organization, who have been quieter than usual since VSS filed its complaint, will once again be making their opinions heard at Board of Supervisors meetings.
"For 17 months we waited to get a decision on this case," Shockey said. "That really did have a chilling effect on CPR and its members. They wanted to shut us up and shut us down, but they ain't seen nothing yet."
In May, Bailey took over the investigation, begun 15 months earlier by former Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney John Notarianni. No
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
If I call you by some racial, religeous, or ethnic name, you can sue me. If I have a web site set up for it, Hate laws come after me (funny folks insult white guys and it is not hate). Try to sell a swastika in France and your site will be blocked. Now it is being applied to the political sites that are yelling fire in the theater. Your freedom is an illusion. Cyberspace ain't all that special of a place. The rules of reality still apply there.
Article three, section two: "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority" and "the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact".
Of course, I happen to love Cthulhu for President if you want to find somebody with a clearly defined position on all matters of American society.
What is funny is the bumperstickers and T-shirts you can buy from the "campaign headquarters". Do they have FEC registration confirmed?
Remember, this is only a write-in campaign.
Nope.
"I'm going to kill you at 5PM tomorrow" is a DEATH THREAT. Assault is when I beat you up
You're thinking of assult and battery. Assault is the threat and/or attempt, not the act of doing harm:This highlights my point about the law surrounding free speech. The on-the-street defintion of assault and of free speech are both wide misinterpretations of the laws under which our country has operated for over two centuries.
From The Kerry Spot:
BRADLEY SMITH: FEC COULD EVENTUALLY REGULATE BLOGS? [10/13 03:17 PM]
Cam Edwards of NRANews.com reports in, after interviewing Bradley Smith, Chairman of the Federal Election Commission. Cam states:
"When I asked him if we're eventually looking at the FEC deciding what blogs run afoul of McCain/Feingold, he said that's the direction we're heading. Not just in determining what blogs might be in violation of McCain/Feingold, but determining what blogs would be able to claim a media exemption. Scary stuff."
Great. So the only way bloggers can keep their First Amendment rights is for a president to be elected who would tear up McCain-Feingold.
Somehow I suspect John Kerry won't go to the mattresses to prevent the FEC from regulating blogs. And George W. Bush already signed McCain-Feingold in the first place.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Oddly I saw this once before, and Democrat and Republican were reversed! It made no difference to how incredibly lame the joke is.
The original joke was much simpler. The person in the balloon asked the person on the ground where they were, and the person on the ground said "in a balloon". The balloonist then deduced the person on the gound was in tech support because they said perfectly accurate but totally useless information.
Obviously somebody added a retort, and then somebody changed it to political, and then realized it was insulting their favorite party so they made the person on the ground a genius instead of an idiot. So that is how the original rather funny joke got perverted to this mess.
...make that "your argument".
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
I can't believe the mods!
Doesn't anyone remember grade school? 3 branches...create laws...enforce laws...interpret laws... no one?
A judiciary's purpose is to interpret the laws passed by law makers.
It's perfectly natural to have regulations to ensure a just economy; Laws against fraud, slander, libel, etc.
It's definitely a good thing to keep shadowy monied players from buying an election to keep their political machine churning.
Now the trick is to do these things without burying the system that is basically good but needs guidance.
Aside from direct person-to-person verbal (and non-verbal) communication, every form of communication requires an economic transaction to buy pen and paper, buy email or web bandwidth, print flyers or newspapers, etc. Campaign finance laws don't sweat the small stuff, so I don't think I have to worry about how much I spend on my web site (<$100/mo) that happens to express my personal political views and voting recommendations.
This may also be a case where Freedom trumps Privacy. Privacy means other people don't have to know what you do; Freedom means you're allowed to do what you do even when other people know about it. If we're going to have Freedom of speech, we might have to give up anonymity and admit where the money's coming from and how much it is. What would people think if they knew the money trail for the ad campaign from the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush? Would they be suprised that people X,Y and Z spent $bignum to put that out? Would it affect their appraisal of the message to know who the messenger is?
A lot of this stuff is already out there, to the credit of the campaign finance rules. I think it just needs to be a little more widespread and a little easier to find.
[This message paid for by slashdot. I'm Brian Olson and I endorse this message.]
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Not at all; to interpret law is one of the primary functions of a judge. To find and argue interpretations is the main function of a lawyer. This state of affairs is a logical necessity, not a cruel and arbitrary caprice. Humans are not capable of writing laws that require no interpretation. The delicious silliness of your post is that the position you are trying to argue itself requires interpretation. Here is the text of the first amendment:
Speech, press, assembly, and petitions are all mentioned, but for some reason the Internet is not. You have interpreted speech or press in a broad sense to include the Internet. So all you are really saying is that your interpretations are valid, and the Supreme Court's are not.
"The good reader is a rarer swan than the good writer."
It seems we used to know what the word despotism meant, but somehow forgot. I guess its just not profitable to play these old classic on TV anymore.
BOUGHT. Why not either a) have the government give each qualified candidate a designated amount they can spend on their campaign, or b) flat out limit the amount they can spend? People might cry that it's not fair, that why should be able to buy^H^H^H donate as much as they want, and that a candidate should be able to spend as much as he/she sees fit, However, this, at least in my opinion, skews the process so incredibly in favor of those with more money, competency notwithstanding,
Every election year it's the same, tired, crap, where each politician makes the same promises they did the prior election. The one who gets elected is often the one that can drill their promises into the minds of prospective voters more effectively than the others - which translates into more ads, which of course, requires more money. That's about it - politicians bought and paid for by the U.S political system.
It is the state government that gives a corporation its transhuman powers (limited liability, the charter that effectively makes it immortal, etc). That same level of government should be in charge of what "rights" and responsibilities that it has.
People, on the other hand, are not created by government. So we need a special catch-all, which is recognized as being above and beyond state government, to guarantee certain rights. Thus, it doesn't bother me at all, that the US constitution protects some of my rights and holds those rights as being beyond state government's ability to interfere with. Can a corporation make that same argument?
Maybe the simplest way to put it is this: without government, corporations do not exist. But people still do. Government exists at our pleasure, and corporations exist at government's pleasure. Corporations are not our equals.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Now, consider, with political speech: the government fines you within an administrative court, the fine is for speaking about something in some way - whether or not it is true. This is an entirely different class of "wrongdoing" than the others.
I was with you up to there.
I know of no such restriction. I do know of restrictions on political speech which limit candidates to the point (at least this is the intent) where they cannot un-hinge the democratic process by spending more money than their opponent. This does not work because we do not fully enforce, fund and augment such laws where needed. However, the idea is the same as assault: you cannot use speech to restrict the freedoms of others (including other candidates who have as much of a right to the voters' attention as you).
This is why I'm against excluding anyone who COULD win an election from appearing in a debate (in a presidential race this means including anyone who is on enough ballots to get a majority of electoral votes).
This is also why I'm for limiting how much money you and your supporters can spend in EVERY medium to support your campaign. That means that I can put up a pro-Joe-Blow site as long as I don't exceed individual campaign dontaions in terms of the resources expended (which, on a $20/month hosted site is easy to avoid). I can then say anything I want.
But, by the same token, Google could not put a giant Joe Blow ad on their homepage (because the value of that one ad would exceed the individual contribution allowed).
This is nothing new, and applying to the Internet is an expected consequence of the Internet's popularity as a medium. What will be interesting is enforcement, given the Inernet's nature as a truly international medium... we shall see.
Anyone know where to find it? My HOA is one of these types, no political signs whatsover...
Would love to beat them over their heads with a real law... but finding it on the net is isn't simple
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A threat is more than spoken word, gesture, or other form of communication, it is any act that is perceived to indicate deliberate and imminant harm.
This is not unique, and in fact many free speech cases revolve around non-speech. See more below...
By both of us now using that statement as example, we've demonstrated that the SPEECH is not illegal, it is the intent that is illegal.
Not as I understand the concept of free vs. protected speech (were you speeking because you know that to be the case or because it seems intuitively obvious to you?)
It is the intent which is used as (one of) the benchmark(s) for infringing speech, but it is the speech which is illegal because of the context in which it is performed. There are illegal forms of speech. Often, we try to limit the situations in which such speech can be deemed illegal, but if I tell someone from Iran our launch codes, that's treason regardless of the fact that I was excersising my right to free speech.
Free speech is not, and (to my knowledge) never has been an absolute. Protected speech is, but protected speech has in turn always hinged on what it is that we protect.
Or at least that what our current political system seems to belive..
Espcitally California, the district court they has it on record ' the rights in the constitution were not intended to be extended to the individual citizens.. '
its time for a change people... and 'the vote' isn't going to cut it this time..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Google is presumably not subject to graft if you are referring to the results of searches done using their software (in any ostensible way).
Oops, Google's cooperation with China totally slipped my mind. Google is removing the links from their search result pages that China is blocking to prevent their being viewed by the people of China.
Presumably that isn't happening here in Usia and the rest of the world, but who knows outside of the Google programmers/admins?
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
If citizens can't be trusted to make the "correct" decision come election time in the middle of a sea of misinformation, why are we even bothering to let them vote at all?
B*I*N*G*O
Or as I put it: "Gee, the world is full of stupid people. Thank god there are smart individuals like myself who can lead the sheeple in the right direction," which is only a few logical steps away from Orwellian like ideas such as "Ignorance is power," "submission is freedom," and "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." (i.e. by restricing your rights we're making you *more* free).
Its an unfortunate side effect of human nature to assume most people are dumber/more ignorant than yourself. Unfortunatly there are people like AJS who then want to base law upon that assumption.
I, for one, am all for that being protected speech. I certainly hope anyone planning on killing, injuring, or otherwise harming is polite enough to give me 24 hours notice. Ideally they'll say it in a recording I can provide to police. It's the criminals who commit crimes without announcing it in advance that worry me a bit more.
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What you learned in public school has little if any congruency with real life. Shit, buddy, this is basic US history. Even if you take AP US History at your local public school, you'd learn this.
The section you quote says that if you go to court for violation of a federal law or treaty, the Supreme Court gets to decide if you actually broke the law or not.
What that section does not say is that the SCOTUS can decide the contitutionality of any given state or federal law, or force a government agency to create new laws or rewrite existing laws (via executive administrative privilege, yet another uncontitutional power), as is the case here.
It's just not there. Anywhere. Period. We can talk about precedent all day long, and that's fine. But don't pretend it's in the Constitution when it's not.
TV and print seemed to require regulation because there was a very small number of TV stations and newspapers in each demographic region.
The internet is not subject to the constraints that made it necessary to limit print media and TV. So we should not have the regulation.
For that matter, if the technology were to start creating thousands of little tv stations and newspapers, then we should be looking at ending all regulation.
The real political force on the net is all the blogs and weird opinion pieces that people throw around. These are incredibly difficult to regulate.
The whole need for regulation resulted from the small number of people in the publishing industry. In a world where every one can be a publisher, then the need for reuglation vanishes.
Somehow I think that is precisely the point...
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
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.
If you understood the circumstances of the case where that line was used, you might not be so comfortable about the court's ruling.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
No, the naive approach is the one that says "I know which values are important and the framers of the constitution couldn't _possibly_ have meant what the words say, because that would rattle my sensibilities...". Look around. The world is a highly diverse and often dangerous place. Regulations will not change that fact.
There is a great logical mechanism for solving this argument: ask yourself "IF the authors had intended that all speech, all the time, anywhere, should be protected, then how would they have best worded the 1st amendment?" Answer is pretty much _exactly_ as they did. If they'd wanted to regulate certain kinds of speach they would have f*cking said so.
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).
One man's reasonable is another woman's outrage. The framers of the constitution were rabid idealists who couldn't imagine a lazy or unquetioning populace. They didn't worry about big money 'buying' an election because you can't 'buy' a skeptic.
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.
The constitution is (or should be!) a lot more absolute than any particular sitting 'scotus'. A history of error-riddled tyranny in our courts is no justification for that tyranny.
Coulda fooled me. That seems to be all our esteemed candidates do.
That some Americans think that the 1st Amendment might not be about political speech is testimony to just how corrupt our understanding of freedom and our own constitution has become during the 20th century (and now into the 21st). The ACLU and other so called lovers of liberty will spend money and make much hue and cry defending pornography and the right of teenagers to wear t-shirts to school sporting every kind of profanity; but when an issue threatening the very fabric of liberty in the US comes along, there comes no worthwhile comment. It's sad, really.
Anyone who wonders whether idea of the 1st Amendment covers political speech need look no further than the writings of one of the great jurists in American history: Joseph Story. Try A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States.
Story was a US Supreme Court justice from 1811-1845 and his commentaries on the Constitution were the first, most influencial work of its kind. Regarding the reasoning behind the 1st Amendment I quote from the book:
(The above quote is italicized in the original.)
Nowadays, under the influence of Marxian scholarship, all sorts of "interpretations" of the Constitution have taken hold. What we risk is a gross equivocation that encourages people to think they are guaranteed all sorts of rights, when in fact any meaningful interpretation of these rights has been supplanted. What we risk is a United States in name only.
That the United States government should regulate political speech is arguably the most un-American notion that could possibly take hold -- excepting of course all the other "notions" that will inevitably follow from the infringement of the right to speak and write on political topics.
I urge everyone: don't remain ignorant on what the Constitution protects and what this country is supposed to be about. The only thing that can maintain the integrity of the US (or rebuild it) is people committed to a vigilant guarding and tireless espousing of the ideals on which this country was founded.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Labor unions wield similar clout and are similarly unaccountable to their members and to society as a whole. Are you prepared to impose the same prohibition on them?
Personally, I'm willing to enact the restriction that only natural persons (living humans) can contribute to a candidate, and only then to a candidate for whom they're eligible to vote (no contributions from outsiders), and only for a specific candidate/race (no transferring unused funds to other races or other candidates).
But, by the same token, Google could not put a giant Joe Blow ad on their homepage (because the value of that one ad would exceed the individual contribution allowed).
That's the problem I have with this. I happen to have creative control on several websites, two of which get a substantial amount of traffic. According to your reasoning, it's perfectly OK for me to put a George Kerry bumpersticker on my car, but it should be a federal offense for me to put a John Bush ad on my website? What if I, as a content editor for my own highly popular site, want to run a series of stories on how John Bush dodged the draft in the Siamese War and why George Kerry deserves your vote? Will it be legal is my site gets 10 hits a day, but a felony if it gets 10,000? Now you're abridging my speech based on factors beyond my control!
It basically all boils down to this question: What, exactly, constitutes an advertisement? We can agree that the SwiftBoat vets television spot is an advertisement, but is their website an ad? Are sites like Indymedia and FreeRepublic, information sites on extreme opposite ends of the political spectrum, going to be considered ads because they constantly support one candidate and rail on the other?
Where do you draw the line?
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
This argument, and its variants which appear here often, always amazes me. The topic of discussion here is precisely 'how the U.S. works' and proposed changes. Some here, including me, consider the changes bad, others good, but arguing the status quo somehow negates the whole discourse is incomprehensible.
Conversely, how do stop campaigns from unfairly accusing sites which report unfavourable news, a good one for example being the purported efforts on the part of some Republican groups to harrass or 'lose' voter registrations in areas with strong minority populations who typically vote Dem. For example:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=
Yell "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater, and then talk to me about the freedom of speech. You cannot IMAGINE how much has been written on this subject.
I wonder how they intend to regulate internet ads, considering most political speech on the internet costs nothing to make and a good deal costs nothing to broadcast (through a free hosting server like Blogger, for instance.) In the print-and-tv world, the costs for distributing an ad are pretty high, more than the average person could just pull out of their pocket. Thus we have campaign finance laws to help manage who gives their money to endorse which candidates. But, even if you paid for bandwidth every month, you're still looking at $200 or less for the entire year leading up to an election. Politically speaking, that's a drop in the bucket to the current system.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
Good catch. I think regulation is dangerous regardless of the number of channels of communication.
I should have said "perceived need" for regulation. When there a few avenues for communication we start feeling a need for a countervaling forces.
The effect of regulation is always to reduce the number of avenues of communication. Regulations generally help put the cap on monopolies.
PS: this poll reminds me that I need to throw more effort into the Local Campaign Directory I put on my site. I think the internet community should really work hard to get candidate web sites out in front of the community. That will be the project for tomorrow.
No. Not "we." Some people tolerate it because they haven't the least concept of what freedom of speech should mean. Don't be so darned inclusive about this. The people who you legitimately include with your "we" are people I wouldn't care to have in my home.
Censorship of broadcast media by law is uniformly, absolutely, completely and utterly a bad thing. And all the more obviously so because the resource is scarce. It is harmful on every level. It is dangerous, unbalanced by its very nature, and entirely subjective, which means that it is always dictated by the opinions of those in power in order to control what those not in power may see and/or hear and/or read so as to bring the victims views in line with the controlling elements views.
Children can reasonably be subject to media access controls by the adult parents and/or guardians who legitimately and directly supervise them during which time they should be educating them as to how to deal with information - critical thinking, freedom of choice, responsibility and consequence. Children should not be "protected" from information by third parties. Adults should not be subject to media controls. Ever. Period.
Censorship is a sign of sick government, poor citizen performance, and poor parenting. In that order.
One final thing: If any of you think that you should be able to leave your children in front of an instrument receiving general broadcasts so you can use it as a "babysitter", then don't even bother to reply to this with any expectation of a response from me. Let me just short-circuit the entire process by handing you your head on a platter right now. Calling such behaviour lazy and irresponsible (today, right now, with current censorship controls in place) is to understate the case to an immense degree. Broadcast today is violent to a numbing extreme, sending a constant desensitizing message about violence, while on the other hand turning perfectly natural and beautiful issues of sexuality into twisted caricatures of themselves. And those two issues are just the tip of the iceberg. If you expose your kid unsupervised to that information stream before they understand the issues, you deserve what you get. Unfortunately, your kids didn't. Too bad for them they have idiot parents. Once they have reasonable perspective and the mental tools any citizen should be gifted with by their parents, fine, let them at the flow of information, opinion, entertainment, and trash. If you're even a half-decent parent, they'll be fine. Censorship doesn't protect your kids. It warps them.
Thanks for reading.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
using these new fangled technologies to get a leg up on the only parties that have a chance at getting elected.
Dean, the Libertarians and the Green Party have cut a large path on the internet, finding a lot of the younger audience. It may be possible that soon we will actually have a choice in our elections, instead of choosing between dumb and dumber.
To keep that from happening, they have to control this menace.
Nader now has proven himself to be the Washington insider he always has been. By not getting on the ballot in enough states to win, he proves he is doing to take votes.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Believe everything you're told do you?
:)
Seems like it would be a Darwin/Survival of the fittest,(those who actually investigated said fire).
I understand your point,(fire-theater), but it has been allowed to be abused. To the point where we now have "Free Speech Zones" within which you may speak your mind, but do not step outside it and spread your heresy.
This too will be abused. They will make it so the "other" candidates, (you know, those who "can't" win), will be prevented from creating sites. Are they going to stop off country sites from hosting political sites favoring candidates? Probably not.
It will be fun watching though
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
That's the problem I have with this. I happen to have creative control on several websites, two of which get a substantial amount of traffic. According to your reasoning, it's perfectly OK for me to put a George Kerry bumpersticker on my car, but it should be a federal offense for me to put a John Bush ad on my website?
On your personal site, an ad isn't worth much, and to counter the impact of your personal ad, a candidate would have to spend next to nothing.
On one of the large sites that you run, I presume you accept money for ads. If "the other guy" wanted to buy that same ad it would cost him money, and by putting up the ad for your candidate you are turning down money that you could have charged for that space. This places a value on your contribution, just as if you had handed cash to the candidate.
All that these rules do is say that you cannot contribute money to a campaign via advertising without the same restrictions that you would face if you wanted to contriubte cash. I don't see how this is unreasonable unless you also feel that restrictions on cash donations are unreasonable.
You have a very valuable pulpit. If you want to host the political literature of all of the major candidates in a fair and even way, that's one thing (and I would defend that as protected speech), but if you want to donate it to a candidate, then it's just a donation like any other.
"but to interpret a law that merely says campaigns, which are already regulated on the radio and TV, should be regulated on the Internet as well, as a law regulating free speech on the Internet, is overreaction."
"campaigns" are just anyone advocating the election or unelection of specific individuals. So, it is that the content of one's speech defines what is being regulated. Introducing some artificial abstractions merely obfuscate the censorship, it does not make it any less so. I am reacting now because I intend to run for office
Your own reference shows my point, from the article:
"I would state that several of your client's ads do seem to step right up to the dividing line between an advocacy group and a political action committee," Bailey wrote to CPR lawyer Peter White. "It is possible that future literature in the same vein may in fact step over such a line, bringing your client to the other side. To date, however, such does not appear to be the case."
How is this implicit threat not a threat to democracy, free speech and freedom itself? If I want to advocate the election of someone, I have a right to do so. If I want to put a sign on my front lawn, I shouldn't have to register as a PAC. If I put up a web page, I shouldn't have to register as a PAC. If I put an ad in the paper, I should not have to register as a PAC. If I put a bumper sticker on my car, I should not have to register as a PAC. Regulations regarding political advertising over public airwaves should be FCC regulation of content only applicatble to license holders. There should be no registration of PACs or Campaigns. You should either be on the ballot or not. Heck I think we should ditch the Australian ballot altogether and go back to having people actually vote for whom they want instead of being manipulated like sheep to the slaughter by the party's monopoly on power.
And by the way, Vote Badnarik!
Actually I was over thinking my search phrase. In other words, using too many words and the wrong ones.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Should you be allowed to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater with the sole intent of causing a panic? (there's no fire)
Should other people be allowed to publicly tell huge lies about your person that make it awkward for you to live? What about important things like murder cases where it's just your word against theirs? We have perjury laws, are those laws in violoation of free speech laws?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
> BTW, the secretarty od State how forgot to deliver the comision to Marbury, was cheif justice John Marshal. I little comflict of intrest.
Can you rewrite that in English? I'm interested in learning what it's supposed to mean.
> If you raise your fist to a cop, you have just ASSAULTED A COP.
If the cop beats you down with his night stick and pounds you to a bloody pulp, planting drugs and a gun on you, he is CALLED A HERO.
Just thought of a different way to respond to this.
... several websites," you could just as easily have said, "I happen to have $1,000,000."
You say, "I happen to have creative control on several websites, two of which get a substantial amount of traffic. According to your reasoning, it's perfectly OK for me to put a George Kerry bumpersticker on my car, but it should be a federal offense for me to put a John Bush ad on my website?"
That's right. When you say, "I happen to have
However, I'm not too thrilled with the idea of one contributor having that much control over an election. If we allow contributions like that, then we create a system where a small group of big-spenders can "buy" the election.
I'm sure you don't want that any more than I do, but it's hard to see that that's the right choice when YOU are the one being restricted. I understand and empahtize, but that doesn't change my stand on this.
In fact, I'm rather a radical on this point. I'd rather see candidates cut off from the campaign process entirely. I want to see a non-governmental association of interested parties (including some governmental parties like the FEC and states representation) run the promotional aspects of an election (for all federal offices). Produce a biographical film about the candidates. Publish print, Internet and television ads which describe the candidates' stands on major issues. Schedule debates among ALL of the candidates spanning the entire summer leading up to the election, not just the two months before.
If there is only one pool of money on which to draw, and all candidates draw evenly, then we'll be able to hold an election based on the issues and the capabilities of those who wish to lead.
I'm not sure what your point is. I never suggested that that slander, perjury, or speech intending to cause panics or crime should be legal. Those are and should remain illegal. I suggested that a criminal admitting his intent to commit a crime should be legal. It provides clues for police to try and capture the criminal. It provides warning for potential victims to try and avoid the risk. All good things, no real down side. If such an admission is honest I see no problems with it.
Put another way: calling in a fake bomb threat should be illegal; you're telling a lie with the intent to cause harm to others. Calling in a real bomb threat should be legal; it gives potential victims a chance to avoid the danger and the phone call itself may provide police a clue to track down the bomber.
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