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".

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)

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.

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.

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!!!!!!

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.

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.