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Democrats Defeat Online FOS Act
not so anonymous writes "The Online Freedom of Speech Act was defeated in the House of Representatives yesterday. The Act would have immunized political bloggers from having to comply with hundreds of pages of FEC rules." From the article: "In an acrimonious debate that broke largely along party lines, more than three-quarters of congressional Democrats voted to oppose the reform bill, which had enjoyed wide support from online activists and Web commentators worried about having to comply with a tangled skein of rules. The vote tally in the House of Representatives, 225 to 182, was not enough to send the Online Freedom of Speech Act to the Senate. Under the rules that House leaders adopted to accelerate the process, a two-thirds supermajority was required."
Ok, so I'm dusted. I see that the most liberal of parties opposes what is effectively Free Speech and the party which brought us the Patriot Act is advocating the it.
This means there's some reason other than what this post appears to say 'Hey, Democrats hate free speech!', like something has been attached which allows oil drilling in Yosemite National Park. From TFA:
Ah, there's the Why, a loophole for Campaign Finance law.The heading Democrats Defeat Online FOS Act and omission of the Why certainly colours this article. Why the omission? It appears the article poster favours websites/blogs which are covert mouthpieces of a particular interest group spouting dubious facts and leaving out highly relevant facts. Slashdot has effectively been trolled. Was this intentional, Zonk?
When black apears white or pigs appear to have sprouted wings, there's usually politics behind it, that's where Critical Thinking separates the herd. The Fine Print: We're probably not responsible for content, but in any event we are, we'll deny it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This is a joke. The Republicans control the House. In the House, the majority does what it wants. While the bill was brought up under a rule that required 2/3rds majority, the Republican leadership could right this very second bring it up as a normal bill that requires only a simple majority.
It is impossible for the Democrats to stop anything in the House.
The fact that it is uniquely easy for J. Random Citizen to disseminate his own message of rebuttal.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Remember who signed the DMCA--Clinton. I think free speech in the slashdot, eff sense is really quite orthogonal to party lines.
can someone explain?
Sure. In a nutshell, you've been lied to. I would never assert that the Republican party has always vote pro-Freedom (yeah, we wrote the Patriot Act. Sorry about that.), but censorship has often been a Democratic pastime. Remember, the DMCA was signed by a Democrat president, and the PMRC was a pet project of Tipper Gore.
And yet, to hear liberal groups tell it, it's always the Evil Republicans (tm) who want to silence everyone. The truth is far more complex, but how often do you hear of both parties' sins?
P.S. I don't know which party Jack Thompson affiliates with. I won't blame either party for that nut.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The amendment would have created a loophole in campaign finance reform and allowed unlimited political spending on the web. The amendment would actually suppress free speech to the extent that independent views could be drowned out with politically financed astro-turfing.
In the fine tradition of many other laws and bills that have surfaced over the past five years, the intent of this amendment was the exact opposite of that implied by its title. If Orwell were alive, he'd be rolling in his grave.
Slashdot: faux infotainment for nerds.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Remember who signed the DMCA--Clinton. I think free speech in the slashdot, eff sense is really quite orthogonal to party lines.
And a Republican congress passed the law to begin with. Both major parties have similar agendas in this regard--most people, sadly, choose to ignore that fact and simply spout "my party is all that is good and light. Your party is teh suck" tripe.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Consider this scenerio:
Some PAC raises one million dollars from unlimited, unreported donations.
They use the money to pay 1000 bloggers to promote their issue.
They don't need to report that these bloggers work for them, or how much they get paid.
Rinse. Repeat.
Is this free speech?
Hi All -
The reality is that neither party respects our liberties (i.e., fully embracing both the enumerated and unenumerated, and retained rights as outlined in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution). They tell us to look at the US Constitution and ask "where are you given that right?", rather than asking the question Madison would have, which is, "where did you give up that right?"
Both political parties have a shared monopoly on power (I think we called this a duopoly in Econ 101), and will resist any attempt to take away this power. Yes, they will jostle for advantage over one another, but when this duopoly is threatened they will unite against it (see, opposition to any redistricting reform by the mainstreams of both the Republican and Democratic parties in California).
Looking back at the 2004 election, the mainstream of the Democratic party was hit right between the eyes by the power of the Internet and Blogs, as demonstrated by the insurgent campaign of Howard Dean. The look at this and wonder what it might have been
Couple this with that there are still a few Republicans who value liberty (as understood through the lens of enumerated and unenumerated rights), over staying in power, and you see why this got fair broader support among them.
This isn't the first time something like this happened. Rewind back to the election of 1968, and TV was the breakout media. Eugene McCarthy used it effectively in New Hampshire to force Johnson from the primary process. Nixon and Wallace (running one of the most effective 3rd party campaigns since Teddy Roosevelt (even if I despise what he represented), used it to great benefit.
So, in the Congress following this election what happened? An incredible level of restrictions on TV in political campaigns were put into place, which effectively put access to TV in the hands of those in power.
Like McCain-Feingold (and I say this with the greatest respect for both of these gentleman), giving the FEC oversight of Bloggers will only diminish the level of free speech and dialog in the public square. The internet and blogs dramatically reduced the barriers to entry to commentators, because as A.J. Liebling noted, "Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." All of a sudden, a whole lot of people now could own the equivalent of a printing press. And the result is as you would expect (applying Sturgeon's Law that 90% of everything is crap), with a lot of nonsenses and garbage spewing forth, but a few gems mixed up in the overall stream.
If I had my magic legislative wand, and could make one change to improve the political process in this country, I would wave it and do away with our FEC as it exists and our various restrictions on political spending and embracing Justice Brandise maxim, "sunlight is the best disinfectant; electric light the best policeman", I would require the following:
1. That within 24 hours of any political donation being made, that this fact be posted for all to see and search on the Internet. Any legislation in which this party has an interest will also be identified. If this donation was made by a PAC, then the membership of that PAC must be clearly visible (i.e. I can follow the money).
2. For scheduled meetings, 24 hours in advance, and for unscheduled meetings within 24 hours, any meeting with a lobbyist (defined as someone educating on an issue or requesting legislative action) will be disclosed for all to search on the Internet. The topic of this conversation will be disclosed along with any legislation discussed or related to the topic of conversation. The source of funding for this lobbyist, organization, or individual, must be made transparent, all the way back up the chain. If Lobbyist A was hired by Organization X who received funding from PACS 1, 2, and 3, who in turned received funding from PACS 4, 5, and 6, I should be able to follow it all the way back to the companies and individuals making the donations.
3. The calendar of all members of the Legislative and Executive branches, along with their staff members, will be made available and search-able on the Internet. Common, unique identifiers will be used to enable cross referencing.
Yours,
Jordan
Myself, I vote for politicians (while holding my nose), not for parties.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Remember, the DMCA was signed by a Democrat president
And passed by a Republican majority congress. The sins of both parties are legion, and whenever someone comes around to challenge the status quo, left or right, they band together and squash the threat.
It is so funny to me to listen to the Democratic Party's newly found fondness of federalism, where for 40 years prior they treated support of states' rights and federalism as mere code words for supporting racism and segregation, and out of touch with core American values. Now that they're outnumbered at the federal level, they have all kinds of respect for checks and balances and fiscal responsibility.
No, it isn't. It's about exactly what it says it's about, which is exempting some opinionated dude in his pajamas from having to hire lawyers and accountants in order to exercise his first amendment right to free speech. The fact is that in the last election cycle the Dems got their asses handed to them due to their inability to uphold the status quo, which is (was) being able to rely on the main stream media to play the role of gatekeepers w/ regard to the message being put forth by a candidate or organization.
This isn't about trashing McCain Feingold, it's about preserving an idividual's freedom of speech within the political process. There is no difference between a blogger and some dude in a bar rattling on about politics.
Somehow the parent was modded 'insightful'?
Ignorance has covered the land, eh whos suprised?
This bill in NO WAY will effect your ability to post whatever you want on your website, UNLESS you recieve money from somebody in a political party to post said content. You can post or publish ANYTHING you like, as long as you do it with your money. In no way would that restrain your ability to read other people who run, and edit THEIR OWN blogs. And then, EVEN IF these websites recieved such money, the only thing you would notice is the disclosure of WHO paid money.
For some reason, this is being posted with a title that disparages democrats, when in actuality they struck down a bill that would have made the funding source similar to CLOSED-SOURCE software, ie you cant look at it. Or by striking down this bill, the funding stream FOR EVERYONE has to BY LAW be disclosed just like everywhere else, ie OPEN-SOURCE. I mean isnt that the republican line on all this Patriot Act smoke and mirrors? The basic line of thinking, if you arent hiding anything in your funding sources, why wouldnt you want to disclose them? If you stopped listening to the rhetoric, you wouldnt get caught up in such inconsistancies of logic.
Stop being such an uninformed alarminst!
On a side note, I stopped having stories posted by 'Zonk' display on my slashdot homepage, because they were just garbage and it made me start to stay away from this site. The only way I noticed this article was by logging in on a computer that wasnt mine. It was amazing how much removing just that single editor made a difference in the percieved, and actual, quality of slashdot.
And the Republicans AND Democrats have way more money than every other political party...where's the laws bringing that into balance? Oh wait, we third party people don't even argue about that... We just want elections that are fair where when we get on the ballot we don't get dragged into local courts by the big parties with them arguing we should be taken off because we have no chance to win...because we aren't them... where our Presidential candidates, if they are on enough ballots to (in theory) get enough electoral votes to win, can participate in Presidential debates...where the ballot boxes aren't stuffed and voting machines aren't rigged (both big parties guilty of this)... In other words, we want Free and Democratic elections in the United States (well....everyone sems to want them for Iraq, or this or that third world piss poor country, only fair we should want them here.) That would be election reform. Who gives a shit about "campaign finance" at a stage where everything else is broken?
This isn't about trashing McCain Feingold, it's about preserving an idividual's freedom of speech within the political process.
That's too bad, because the more I look at it, the more convinced I become that it's not possible to preserve an individual's freedom of speech without first trashing McCain/Feingold.
Upholding Campaign Finance law was the second-biggest mistake of the Supreme Court in the last ten years. The first, obviously, was their brain-dead Emminent Domain ruling. Why is it that the so-called "progressives" in American politics seem to be the ones in the biggest hurry to take my rights away?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Money is in fact extremely important to our elections, which is unfortunate. The fact that some very rich men (Perot and Forbes) lost to other very rich men (or, rich/entrenched political parties if you prefer) does not defeat this notion. These clowns spend a fortune on some of these political races...
Media favor is probably the most important factor in elections... money is important because it can influence media favor to some degree.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?