Slashdot Mirror
Bloggers Avoid Federal Crackdown on Speech
InklingBooks writes "Redstate has a chilling description of the FEC's original March 10 proposal to regulate political speech on the Internet. It would have been a 'regulatory minefield for bloggers' and may yet return." CNet has a view of this earlier language as well. It's important to note that the regulation has changed much since the initial draft. The FEC began consideration of more developed regulation language on Thursday. From the article: "So, the original attempt to regulate started with the premise that everything was to be regulated except that with limited distribution or on password-protected sites."
Jumping ahead 50 years to a train tour of the Easy coast... On the left you will see North Korea, which as been towed all the way from the Pacific Ocean to Washington DC because we just felt there was no longer any difference.
Well, there is a simple solution.
Move to Europe.
Or keep your blog on a server outside the US.
All I can imagine is that it's related to the JG (Jim/Jeff Gannon/Guckert) fiasco, which they'd apparently like to blame on a few crazed muckracking bloggers. However, the "big story" isn't that someone with such a crazy and blackmailable past and no writing or journalistic skills was wandering around the White House. The real story is that he could pass for a "real journalist" for a couple of years. That's the real metric of how low America has sunk. Famous sense of humor notwithstanding, Benjamin Franklin would not be amused.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
No, it's not. It's a perfectly natural reaction to the growing popularity of political blogs. They saw the potential in blogging and they saw possible danger in it. And now they want to regulate it (so that, say, one political party couldn't secretly fund a blog slinging mud at their opponents). There's nothing suprising there -- except for maybe the harshness of the proposed regulations.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
So wait, in US politics its acceptable to raise and waste billions of dollars on stupid, totally biased commercials for parties, and auxiliary organisations that use some tax loop-hole to make even more biased commercials that rarely provide any insight to the arguments, but blogging is not on? The only people who really win in all this are the media companies, and lets not get started about 'campaign contributions', bribery and 'e' voting, the FEC shouldn't even be looking at the internet with all these problems.
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it means I can say whatever I want to about politics and the government. If I want to rail against Bush, I can do it. Against Clinton, an do it. Against Communists, Nazis, the ZOG Machine or whatever the hell else, I can do it. And the Government has no power to regulate it.
Further, "campaign finance laws" and TV ad shit. 'Freedom of Assembly.' If several people who have the same ideas I do get together and call ourselves the NRA or the AFL-CIO, doesn't matter, we have the right to do that, pool our money, and support our interests.
Respect the constitution to the letter or don't pretend to honour it. Just admit we dont have one, like Britian.
Like so many things, the issue here isn't black or white. No one in their right mind would regulate the Internet for political messages. On the other hand, its so easy to camouflage yourself on the net that crafty political agents can try to fool people into believing their message comes from someone more credible.
As usual, its the sneaks and cheats who may spoil things for everyone. Isn't there an analogy with email and spam here?
I have no idea what the solution might be, but I wonder about putting the onus on the politician or political party. How about regulating that they (politicians) can only use overt messages on the Internet. No sneaky business. Perhaps there could be stiff penalties if a hoax was discovered with clear evidence leading back to a politician.
There are people who abuse children; the solution is not to regulate children.
The idea is that all candidates should be able to compete fairly. In theory, a poor person with a good idea should be able to compete on the basis of his policies, not on the size of his pocket book.
The basic principle is laudible. In practice however; what a mess. I think the FEC is trying to protect us from astroturfing and outright lying. It would be nice if they could dream up rules that would do that without wreaking havoc on the rights of the rest of us. Oh well. (resigned sigh. Is it too early for a beer? Probably.)
Europe has so many hate speech laws and other crap you're no freeer. Freedom means being allowed to diseminate Nazi stuff along side the commie stuff. Freedom means being able to publicly support or protest immigration. Freedom means not having to associate with people if you don't want to for whatever reason -- race,religion, et cetera -- not being forced to, unless you want to.
Europe also has stupid anti-gun laws. Britian has pretty much banned them. But in 2003 before I left Ireland, I was watching Sky News and there were like, 3 drive by shootings in London in like a week. They interviewd some lady and she was saying how Britian needed tougher gun contgrol laws. Well,you can't GET guns there unless you buy them illegally. Criminals don't obey the law, that is why they are criminals. Breaking and enterings and rapes and stuff jumped in the UK and Australia when they banned private gun ownership -- no armed citizens and no death penalty means no penalty at all.
The rest of the world is not free. Freedom is an illusion. You think its better there because you are from there. I think its better here because I grew up here. The FEC is unconstitional and I'll do whatever the hell I want to. I'm sure you have similarly evil institutions in Europe. Your country just historically doesn't really have rights. European countries have no founding principles because they jsut where always there. We were founded and have foundindg principles and doccuments and that makes it easier to know when we are getting shafted.
I'm not American, but can you please explain how moving to Europe is a solution to the erosion of American civil liberties? Seems it would only make things worse to have people who oppse a government leave.
Even if you reduce the issue to an issue of your own personal rights (the rest of America can go to hell), just by moving to most European countries you would be giving up many rights. The right to vote (you are not a citizen), the right to work (unless you can get the required visa), the right to free speech, many states (e.g Germany for neo-nazi stuff) have government imposed restrictions on what you can say, and will put you in jail for breaching it, the right to use encryption for personal communications (france), the right to bear arms (varies, but most countries are significantly more restrictive than the US). I'm sure there are probably others.
... how many sites would go into password-protected status overnight with a password page that says, prominently, "the password is FUCKTHEFEC"; I wonder if RSS feeds qualify as "limited distribution" in the same way as email lists.
Congress made a law saying the FEC can write binding regulations. If the regulations are defective or unconstitutional, Congress or the courts can change them. Meanwhile, though, they're in effect.
/.ers and others who care can make their opposition heard. The FEC is just using this first draft as a trial balloon which, obviously crashed hard.
Federal employees tend to want more and more power. So do the commissions they make up. Thus Congress mandated public rulesmaking procedures so people like
This is a strange process, and the first draft reminds me of the way we Europeans treated the Indian lands we came upon: Since white people have or might travel here, we need regulations to keep them safe....
Reread Brave New World. The values and civilization the natural people at the end achieved is called the Perennial Philosophy, and is very similar to Open Source or FSF.
Freedom is not granted by a well-crafted constitution; it must be seized!
AnnaMerikin
A death thread about any individual on a blog could probably result in criminal pursuit. It would be like going on radio and saying "I'm going to kill !".
There are criminal charges applicable here, and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
And treathening to kill a elected political leader is simply anti-democratic and dangerous. And I'm saying that as the last guy who would have voted for the actual president...
Did anyone catch the name of the Judge that started this BS...
From TFA...
The FEC is in the unusual position of being required to extend the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act to online politicking because of a federal judge's order last fall. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled--click here for the PDF file--that the FEC improperly exempted the Internet. She also ordered the agency to rewrite its rules.
Isn't that the same ho that let Microsoft off the hook a few years ago... She is really starting to bug me...
I'm glad this gets a negative reaction but I still remember how glad everyone was when Russ Fiengold and John McCain passed a law that said free-speech doesn't apply to politics. Political free speech is going to need more protection, either from new judges or another amendment.
...You're getting it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When mccain-feingold was first proposed, I found the very notion of it a disgusting violation of the first amendment. My friends disagreed, but the writing was on the wall.
Don't say that you weren't warned
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Political speech is the most sensitive, and the SCOTUS usually gives it the most protection. I suspect any attempt of this kind would rapidly result in their stepping in. I also expect many people would be willing to draw the line here.
These are some comments of mine on the CDA from many years ago:
"Recently my pastor quoted Nelson Mandela's inauguration address in the context of how we should challenge authority and give forgiveness in taking freedom. I was listening and weeping and thinking.
"Nelson Mandela can say that; Ken Saro-Wiwa might have said that; even I have the right to say that; but I question whether he should have said that. He has never experienced the arbitrary power of immoral authority, and does not know what it is like to face the power of the state alone with no certainty of outcome. What it is like to have friends fall away and perhaps be jailed. To come out the other side wondering why you are there and others not. I know I can't ask others to go through that. I spoke this morning with one of the plaintiffs who has joined with the ACLU in challenging this legislation, and the only thing I could say was 'Thank you.'
"One of my other postings discusses the academic 'vow' to speak the truth, not listening to pleas of convenience. Politics is not about truth; it is about power. The first rule of politics is 'punish your enemies' and that is what the CDA is about. Certainly many politicians are squeamish about the innocent blood that may be shed; but many more don't mind, and some even relish it. The First Amendment is the least of their concerns. For academics, it is the greatest of our concerns, because it protects us when we speak the truth. I cannot tell you this is the time, but I will suggest that if your fate is to go down challenging immoral authority, this is as good a place as any."
Because. Slashdot readers tend to be between the ages of 14 - 30, which is the "politically ignorant and inexperienced, but outraged about something all the time anyway" age.
90% of Slashdot readers first became interested in the US Constitution in 2001, when they realized they could drop the word "Constitution" into a sentence with the word "Bush" and appear topical. This doesn't mean they actually understand how it works.
Wrong.
When honest people have guns, the criminals will just be more eager to shoot you so that you don't get them first. See my post below about the time I got robbed at a knife-point.
how about stop being a fucking retard? It's a fucking blog, I've put several times "man I want to kill that fucking [name]" and gave reasons why they pissed me off. I'm not going to though, it's fucking retarded to think they would..
This is the sort of bullshit that happens in China, not "the free world" as Bush likes to claim. When the secret service starts making house calls because some guy said he wanted to kill Bush jokingly on a public forum theres something wrong with the world.
I like muppets.
Political organization backing should need to be disclosed anywhere by anyone at any time.
I've no reason to disagree with that.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Look, I know that most Americans are incredibly parochial. That's fine, you have a big country after all. It is however only around 5% of the world's population, the other 95% are outwith your borders.
The Internet is an international network making web sites international by their very nature, so when you say "Bloggers Avoid Federal Crackdown on Speech" what you really mean is "American Bloggers Avoid Federal Crackdown on Speech".
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I'm planning a move to New Zealand soon.
The truth is that the most fundimental right is the right to know what your rights are. America's rights are codified in the Constitution, but they are not respected. The enforcement of, for example, right to trial, has now become arbitrary.
To me, a government exists as a social contract - and I'd rather deal with a government that acknowledges fewer rights but keeps it's word about the ones it respects. That's not what's happening in America.
I understand that by moving to New Zealand, I will lose the right to vote (until I earn citizenship, which is not an undue requirement. I waited 18 years to vote in America, I can wait 3 to vote in New Zealand.) New Zealand actually has a greater respect for free speech than America does - check Reporters without Borders if you want the skinny on that. I mean, "Free Speech Zones?" That's not the America I know.
As for the right to bear arms - the problem with the right to bear arms is that those who bear arms then have a responsibility to monitor the government, and when it encroaches, attempt to change it - hopefully through non-violent means.
Specifically, the NRA, despite being one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America, has done nothing to try to preserve and protect the other 9 amendments in the Bill of Rights. Indeed, by supporting Republicans, the NRA is undercutting the "other 9 amendments that the 2nd is supposed to protect." If you're not going to fight for your rights when doing so is a bloodless, painless excersise, then why would I believe you to fight for them when it means risking your neck and your family's neck?
The truth is, in order for the 2nd amendment to preserve freedom, it needs not just an armed populace but an educated and motivated one. We don't have that in America.
The truth is - and we see this around the world - that a motivated and educated populace is MORE likely to overthrow a corrupt government than an armed one. Look at the Ukraine. Look at Lebanon. These were not victories won by gunpoint - these were victories won standing up to a gunpoint.
The problem is, in America, if you oppose the government, you're in the minority. Most Americans really do want a government that they feel protects the safety and social mores of the majority at the expense of minority rights. Fascism, to them, works, just so long as it's *their* fascist in power.
And that won't go away anytime soon - Jeb Bush will be the next President of the United States because the Republican primaries and the national elections will be held on black-box voting machines. I really don't think, in America, we have the right to vote - and that's the one fundimental right in a democracy.
If there was hope for things to get better - one, tiny, little shred of hope that things were going to improve - I would not be going. There is no hope and the difference between those who stay and fight and those who leave is that the latter have realized this.
Revolution / invasion can reset the clock somewhat, such as in India.
America is getting old - erosion of freedom will continue until the next big uprising (e.g. French Revolution).
You don't get freedom in little pieces.
It's freedom AFTER speech that matters.
To know they would even CONSIDER such a thing is disturbing.
This is just another version of campain finance "reform" like McCain-Fiengold. Are you so disturbed about that? I am, but I'm not acting like this is a suprise.
If we let the large specialized interest groups and the multinational corporations control the flow of information in our society, then we will think and speak whatever they want us to.
It's already happened.
Free Speech was great in the 1700s, before we had companies controlling all the speech that enters our homes. These days, I'd prefer to focus on Free Thought.
Feel free to flame. Turn off the television and the computer first though.
The Law States:
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.
Just because the speech is assosiated with politics or money doesn't make it unfree speech. It could be argued that the intent was to specificlly make politcal speech entirley untouchable. Any atempt to abrige these rights is congress stepping beyond its bounds.
I think that a lot of the people "escaping" the US are the kind that got us into this mess. Ie, they are "US liberals" who support strong central governments (for humane things like welfare and alternative energy). Unfortunately as we're finding out, a strong central government that can feed the poor people of the US or manage Social Security is also a government capable of invading simultaneously multiple countries worldwide or potentially of imposing a theocracy, fascist state, or both.
Evidently his original tactic as head of the FEC was to implement policies to make campaign finance measures as ineffective and rarely-enforced as possible. Now since being successfully sued by representatives Shays and Meehan and ordered to shape up, he's taking the opposite tack and trying to enforce a too-broad view of the laws in order to make them look more onerous than they actually are.
Wow your making out all these issues to be so much more then they are. As a typical citizen my life hasn't changed one bit as far as politics go for at least two decades. The changes being made in law rarely affect many people. Regardless, the situation is anything but hopeless and there are still alot of good folks in Washington that do indeed fight for our rights, you just rarely see it reported on slashdot.
Your view on America seems to come from all those crazy extremist magazines that hate everything America. If you look at the whole picture, the situation is pretty good. Sure George Bush isn't the best, but America's core principles are pretty impenetrable and it would take a hell of alot more then GWB to bring it crumbling down. Personally, I think in 4 years Hilary Clinton will be president... but thats off topic.
If you have ever studied history you'll see things like the current state of America fluctuate very much like a sine wave. Every couple decades we more or less dig ourselves into a little hole, then somehow we always rebound whether its from a kick ass president or because of some global scale war where we go in and save the place. The fact that your not willing to stick around long enough to see America do this again implies that you scare easily and your weak. At the first sign of trouble you run, but I doubt you can seriosuly say your life has actually been impacted by any recent legislation. For this, I hope you love NZ, I know a few folks there, its a nice place. Please don't ever step foot in this country again , if your not man (or woman) enough to stay when it gets tough we don't want you in 20 years when everything is bright and shiny again. (This isn't a flame)
Regards,
Steve
"Redstate has a chilling description of the FEC's original March 10 proposal to regulate political speech on the Internet."
The first thing that I thought was "When will they get it? The US Constitution gives us the right to free speech. But then I started thinking; when has this administration been overly concerned with upholding our constitution.
The Internet can be a very powerful tool for political change but if the people in control of the government depend on the status quo, the last thing they may want is to empower the people to that end.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I would like to add a requirement: you have to make a public statement of good intent; to be honest and decent.
What? You got a problem with honest and decent?
Thanks for putting on the feedbag. Thanks for going all out. Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife.
The US government has always tried to subvert the Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights, all the way back to the Sedition Act. Posting on /. saying "Waah, itz UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!" is all well and good, but the only thing that makes them stop is when we don't let the bastards get away with it. The idea that citing the Constitution will somehow magically make it all better is delusional. They will do as much as they can get away with. When they can't make us comply, and when we fight back, THEN they listen. The rest is just empty talk.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
I don't think there's any magical political platform that all the "average" people are going to agree on. I have pretty common political views, but I disagree with enough people that I know it would never work.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Officially, this could relate back to Shenck v. U.S. (1919) when the Supreme Court ruled that one does not have free speech when such speech causes a "clear and present danger." Unoffically, this would seem as yet another method of government oppression. "Hmm.... I don't like what this person is posting. Let's see if I can 'regulate' it!" Although online blogs could be considered a form of static communication that anybody can read, I doubt that this law could be constitutional.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
Read my sig
- -- Truth addict for life.
I don't understand either.
I think it has to do with the people who say non-white people are inheritly inferior and need government assistance. You know, the Democrats. The party of old money, and actors.
I personally think each case should be decided on the merits of that person's needs, not on the color of his skin. That the content of his character would determine if he gets a job, not some government quota, but I guess thats only a dream of mine.
One of the main problems I see with the world today is that we do not live long enough to fully appreciate the consequences of what we do. If we lived to be 500 or 1,000 years of age, we would do MANY things differently.....and we would have to live a long time with our mistakes....but we would have time to learn form them and make amends.
Only boring people are ever bored.