Online Freedom of Speech Act Introduced in House

Fox Cutter writes "Today in the House of Representatives, Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) introduced a companion piece of legislation to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's bill (S.678) to exclude the Internet from the definition of 'public communication' in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002." If the bill passes, this would free the internet from FEC regulation.

Comments

That's my Congressman!

[RobertB-DC]

Well, I'll be darned. After squirming over action items like "supporting the President in the War on Terror" and "Cracking Down on Indecency", I was concerned. We got a letter recently with a checklist of priorites, which included several of the buzzwords being bandied around by the radical right ever since they disguised fear and hate as "Moral Values" to win the 2004 elections.

And then, Jeb Hensarling (R - Athens) goes and opens the door to "these newcomers to our political process [...] bloggers and online activists." (from TFA). And in a show of rare bipartisanship (on an issue not involving oil or war), he's partnering with a leading Democratic Senator. And some of the biggest beneficiaries of the legislation will be third-party bloggers, Greens, Libertarians, and all the rest.

It's as if he has a sense of civic duty. Maybe it's possible, even today. After all, there are an awful lot of "R"s in Texas who were "D"s in a previous life.

Re:That's my Congressman!

[Chris Burke]

It's as if he has a sense of civic duty. Maybe it's possible, even today.

For politics, that's a healthy positive you have there. "The glass is somewhat damp" as opposed to "The glass is almost completely barren".

Re:That's my Congressman!

[geekee]

" Sorry but... why pass a law to establish the first fucking amendment?"

Because they've already passed laws involving political speech that violate the 1st amendment in the name of "fairness" in political campaign finance. Now they're writing laws to exclude the internet since the older laws would otherwise include the internet.

Clearly, this will go nowhere

[Mr Ambersand]

The chances of the government voluntarily passing up a chance to regulate the government is only slightly less improbable than them passing up a chance to solicit more taxes.

In short, this is a pr move; nothing to see.

Careful though

[fembots]

What's to stop the creation of another internet-specific regulation, which can flex its muscle solely on internet publication without worrying about collateral damage?

Re:Careful though

[William Robinson]

The trouble is internet can not be regulated as everything else.

A web site can be located outside jurisdiction of US. The contents can not be blocked without massive firewalling. Worse enough, emails might carry specific IP addresses with different port to look at prohibited contents. If u look at the artillary of protocols, It will be gigantic task to setup a watchdog to regulate things there.

That will be awful waste of taxpayers money. my 2 cents.

I demand to know:

[antimatt]

If the Internet does not constitute 'public communication,' what possibly can?

This could set a good precedent for censorship...

[merpal]

especially after all the attention blogs have been getting lately.

HOW?

[kir]

How could it be that a Republican introduced a piece of legislation like this? From my slashdot mind-meld, I was taught that all Republicans are evil and wish to take away all of my rights. Oh yeah... and they're ignorant of the internet.

Flame on!

Re:HOW?

[XFilesFMDS1013]

and they're ignorant of the internet.

Of course they are, a Democrat created the internet, why would the GOP want to embrace it?

(And yes, I hate myself for spreading the (fake) story)

Re:HOW?

[MC68000]

Republicans are generally against campaign finance reform, even though republican John McCain started this whole mess. Bush only reluctantly signed it.

What's more important is the slashdot mind-meld. I'm a Republican and a poster on Slashdot for only a few months. It is true that I sometimes cringe and laugh out loud at posts here. But that is the world we live in, and for every "Bush=Hitler" post there are many more with thoughtful criticisms of GWB that are worth reading and responding to. When people engage in such debate, there is at least a tacit level of respect between all parties concerned. When you debate enough Republicans, you realize that although you disagree with them, they are not vampires, and you can have them as friends and colleagues. Again, through debate, you realize that I'm not evil, that I don't run over kittens with my Hummer for fun, and that I love it that both I and the people who disagree with me completely can debate.

Oh yes, I also use Firefox. That at least will get me a good mod.

What does this REALLY mean?

[bmw]

The short summary given in the article makes this out to be a very good thing. I understand how preventing the FEC from regulating the internet is a good thing but what's this about the internet not being considered public communication? It seems to me that the internet covers both public and private communication. Webpages without access control are certainly public, are they not? Also... what exactly does it mean for something to be considered public communication? I'm not terribly familiar with the specific laws involved but I assume this is saying that public communication must be regulated in order to protect the public at large. Definitely not something we want.

This is bullshit...

[John Seminal]

What congress is trying to do is make loopholes into compaign finance laws. By excluding the internet, members of congress are giving themseleves a place they can spend as much money as they want in elections. This is bad because the only people who will be able to run for office will be the very, very rich or those who are funded by corporations and groups. In effect, unless you are Ross Perot or funded by companies (the right) or unions (the left), you will not have the money to run.

I believe the avarage senate seat now costs over one million dollars. The president raised over $60,000,000 of hard money. The days of going door to door, meeting people is over. The days of long talks about what you believe and why is over. The new 30 second soundbyte is in, and the negative attack ads.

As opposed to...

[ShatteredDream]

The Supreme Court ruling that the existing legislation was constitutional? The precedent has sadly already been set, that's why this bill is trying to lessen the damage.

Re:Bad. Bad. Bad Idea.

[YrWrstNtmr]

Is it any wonder this was promoted by republicans?

And if it had been introduced by a Democrat, you'd be singing it's praises from the rooftops.
"All hail the Democrats! The see the true power of free speech!"

Oh wait. It was introduced by a Democrat in the Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. D-Nevada

The bill introduced by Hensarling is a companion bill in the House. Bipartisanship in action.

Cong short-sightedness

[william_w_bush]

Perhaps... perhaps we shouldn't /. this as "good news". I know we all hate M$, and love linux, and hate sw patents... but maybe we should sit down a sec and think about what this bill is doing.

The Internet is "not" a public communications medium, so... it's a cheese bagel?

This is not about free speech, free speech is letting me say what I think w/o going to jail. This is about the net as a political medium.

That said, I am not against this bill, but the /. "hypocrisy is ok as long as it agrees with me" logic should take a back seat to common sense. Giving extremist political groups more room to shout their message for money is another thing we all think is "a bad thing(tm)" right?

I disagree with the supreme court ruling that says $ = speech, because that implies rich people have a louder voice than poor people, which seems not so good.

No exceptions for censorship

[Kohath]

If politics on radio and TV should be censored, then the Internet should be censored too.

The entire campaign finance law needs to be repealed. Not modified. Not limited. Repealed.

Restore freedom of speech before it's too late.

That is closer to the truth than you think

[John Seminal]

Vote for Dick Cheney!

Click here to donate through my PayPal Account!

Please select the amount:
[ ] $50,000
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[ ] Supreme Court Seat

With the internet, I can see money being raised in foriegn countries, then having websites promoting candidates unregulated on the internet. So what if there is a $1,000 maximum on individuals contributing to candidates. Who is going to stop China from helping Clinton get elected http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:1smXmfU5JwEJ: www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000 /000/001/990axijx.asp+gore+china+fundraising+scand al&hl=en&ie=UTF-8.

Everyone knows that money elects people, not idea's. Campaigns hire people to run advertising. They have buzz words, speeches filled with little phrases perfect for a 10 second soundbyte on the news. They make more negative attack ads than advertising about ideas. And often those negative attacks can be ridiculous lies, but they work.

Right now, China can't buy commercial space on TV for promoting a candidate in a USA election. Who is to say they won't do just that with the internet? Or Isreal. Who is to say that Isreal won't secretly fund a candidate, then in return have weapons secrets leaked to them?

Fair Speech

[AtariAmarok]

"Because they've already passed laws involving political speech that violate the 1st amendment in the name of "fairness" in political campaign"

I'm still waiting for someone to show me where in the Constitution it says that freedom of the press is only allowed if what is being said it considered to be "fair" by the government. (the backers of the "Fairness Doctrine", which censors broadcast media that the government does not like, seem to think so). They must have a different Constitution. Any idea where I can get a copy of it?

Re:Fair Speech

[WoodstockJeff]

Political contributions were judged by some people in Washington, often referred to as "The Supremes", to be a form of political speech, exercised by supporting those candidates whose views mirror your own. "Political speech" is what the First Amendment particularly protects.

Of course, another group in Washington decided to pass laws that impose limits upon how much political free speech you can do about any particular federal candidate, and later passed more laws saying you couldn't do so much free speaking when it comes to the party of your favourite candidates.

But they get around that by allowing you to send an unlimited amount of free speech to a licensed-by-the-government organization to spread it around TV and radio stations, so long as no one can tie the control of those organizations back to the political parties or candidates. Which is going to get very interesting here soon, since one of those organizations, MoveOn.org, is now claiming they're going to "take back control" of one of those parties...

And, of course, none of this takes into account money spent by people hiring relatives of political office holders to sit in Washington and lobby congress, getting very favourable legislation passed with the help of their personal Senator or Representative.

Bullocks...

[Kr3m3Puff]

This isn't a freedom of speech campaign, this is trying to get PAC money on the Internet and not allow restrictions. Basically it allows campaigns to do what they can't do now, pay for "free speech."

I don't see freedom in this. I can still blog away, as long as I am not accepting regulated campaign funds to do so. People bat this around like they are making us more "free" when all it does is allow the guys with money to influence our true freedom of speech.

This is like paying the New York Times to write a nice acticle about your campaign. The FEC doesn't allow that, nor should they allow money to influence one of the last bastions of true free speech.

Think about it people!!!!!!

Days of long talks...

[Infonaut]

The days of long talks about what you believe and why is over.

In my experience as a 37 year old American, the only time I've ever engaged in long talks with people about what I believe and why were occurred during the three years I lived in Washington, DC. People inside the Beltway talk about this sort of thing all the time. You go into a bar and instead of asking someone what their sign is, you ask them who they work for and what their party affiliation is. Then you start arguing politics. It's quite fun, actually.

But even though I took a lot of PoliSci in college and have worked in the nonprofit and in federal government, the days of long talks about what I believed and why never existed outside my time in D.C.. In my experience the only people in America who are truly interested in the truly deep details of politics are people inside the Beltway, who have a much more sophisticated view of politics than you might imagine, because in order to get things done, they have to know the details.

For the rest of America, politics is unfortunately either a yawner or an excuse to shout about deeply-held beliefs without ever investigating the details. Negative attack ads have been a staple of political advertising for as long as I can remember, and they just keep getting worse, per your statement.

Re:Days of long talks...

[bluGill]

People inside the beltway are far more likely to work for congressmen than people in the rest of the US. This concentration of people who have to know politics in detail is what allows you to have those conversations. Those same people would be unable to have a in depth conversation on the merits of various corn varieties. Its what you know.

Of course once you have a critical mass of people who know the subject onlookers who otherwise won't have to care become sucked in because the only way to have a conversation with most people is to talk about politics in detail. People have the same problem with me, unless the topic is computer programing I can't hold a conversation. I know politics (Not to the level you do), but I don't know how to hold a conversation about it.

You may be interested in the exact text

[goon america]

You can find an exact copy of bill S.678 here in PDF and here

It says simply

Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.'.

Now, let's google a little further for the bill that this bill amends. Strangely it's missing from any of the summaries I've seen. Ah, here it is (warning: large PDF).

Here's the text of the section being amended (431:22):

(22) Public communication. The term 'public communication' means a communication by means of any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication, newspaper, magazine, outdoor advertising facility, mass mailing, or telephone bank to the general public, or any other form of general public political advertising.

The last bit of emphasis I added. Just as an exercise, let's see how this would look as amended:

(22) Public communication. The term 'public communication' means a communication by means of any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication, newspaper, magazine, outdoor advertising facility, mass mailing, or telephone bank to the general public, or any other form of general public political advertising. Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.

So, this bill would exempt all campaign regulation relevant to advertising spending so long as it was on the internet.