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."

Comments

It's not just blogging!

[Kelson]

From TFA, here's the full text of the bill:

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.'.

That means that, if it had passed, anything posted on the Internet would be exempt from campaign finance laws. That means advertisements, editorials, etc. That means it would be perfectly legal for a political party to use campaign donations to hire people to write political blogs that they might not otherwise have written on their own time, initiative, and opinions. That means hiring people to comment on message boards and other people's blogs. In other words, it means astroturfing.

You may think this is a good thing, in which case it ought to be extended to the print and real worlds -- just remove all those limitations in the first place. But if you think we should be limiting the effect that money has on election campaigns, what makes the Internet special?

As it stands, anyone blogging on their own time already has free speech on the internet. So let's not cast this as a blogbing issue.

The complexity of the issue

[Dark Paladin]

This issue is really very complex, and do make it a simple "up or down" measure I think betrays the very issue of free speech that we're dealing with.

According to the Supreme Court, campaign finance laws do not violate the 1st Amendment. The argument basically goes like this:

You can't restrict campaign finance, because that limits free speech.

SCOTUS: Yes, you can, because then it gives all powers of speech into the hands of the few who can massively pay for it, and restricts "pure" free speech - but if you limit the amount each person/group is able to contribute, then it levels the playing field for speech. It's the equivalent to saying that the guy who can buy a 100 foot tall speaker is just exercising his free speech by drowning everybody else out.

So, now we're talking about the Internet. And here's the problem:

If someone has a political blog, that is probably free speech.

If someone pays a large number of people to have political blogs to support their view, is that still free speech, or is that diluting free speech?

What's the difference between paying for an advertisement on television saying that "Candidate so-and-so likes to have sex with black people and make bastard babies, don't vote for him!" and a company buying up advertisement on the Internet saying the same thing?

So, while I don't think that either the Dems or the Repubs have noble interests at heart, this is an interesting challenge. Do you just say "The Internet doesn't have to worry about campaign finance", and give the possibility of the delution of "pure" free speech as discussed by the Supreme Court and previous campaign finance laws, or do you try and put some language saying "If you get money based on your political views, you have to reveal who did it and how much and can only accept X amount".

I'd rather see a law like the "truth in advertising" - if you're getting money for writing the blog/hosting an ad, you have to state on your web site where that comes from and how much. This way people who are just running ads can say "Google adsense", and those getting it from campaign groups can disclosed if they are a hired gun or not. Granted, there is more to the language than this, but this is just my thumbnail sketch, so if you need to split hairs, at least come up with your own complete language to cover the complexity of the issue :).

It's an interesting question, and one that *should* be debated for a good and long time. If you notice, this was the failure not of a majority but of a "mega-majority" of 2/3 to pass the bill. Some further debate and clarification of the language should make it palatable to that majority in the end, which I believe is perfectly reasonable.

Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.

Re:Freedom of speech had nothing to do with it

[Politburo]

Wrong! The bill was brought this up under the Suspension Calendar rule which allows a short debate and no amendments. Democrats had problems with the wording of the bill. Because they could not amend it, they had to vote against it.

Re:Lovely Omission

[RobotRunAmok]

D00d, Slashdot article summaries, particularly in the Politics and YRO sections, are slanted and biased ALL THE TIME. You just don't notice it cuz they're biased in the direction you clearly favor.

It's pretty disturbing

So see a shrink, and be sure to let us know how that works out for you. I think it's pretty AMAZING that this story got through with such a reverse slant in play. Is /. merely going for the pageviews this will engender? Is small-town-video-game-reviewer-turned-overnight-ma jor-site-front-page-editor Zonk just asleep at the console? Or is it something more... interesting? (There is no user registered as "not so anonymous" -- what up with dat?)

Re:Rewind a bit

[magarity]

Amusing conspiracy rant but it doesn't have anything to do with 527 groups. To make my point, here is a URL for the list of the top 527 groups nationwide:
http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cm tes.asp?level=C&cycle=2006
Note that of the top 10, only numbers 4,5 and 7 are Republican and only one, 9, is reasonably non-partisan.

Re:Lovely Omission

[Wellspring]

Excellent point. I appreciate your honesty about this, because there's a lot of noise out there that tries to obscure the core issue.

For the rest of you, if you're in favor of regulations on free speech, then just come out and say so. Explain your reasoning, talk about extenuating circumstances, just like timeOday has done. Stop pretending that this isn't a limitation on free speech.

The Supreme Court has struck down numerous campaign finance laws over first amendment issues (Buckley vs US, anyone?). Former house majority leader (Democrat) Dick Gephardt responded by suggesting that the First Amendment be changed to allow campaign finance limits. The current SCOTUS has ruled that campaign finance IS a limitation on free speech, but that extenuating circumstances (making things appear less corrupt) justifies it.

For my part, I'm opposed to any attempt by do-gooder meddlers to limit free speech just because they think that paid advertising == mind control. Inevitably, this is an attempt to control and limit debate and free discussion. The FEC has ruled that blogs will be regulated and controlled by the campaign finance laws, and the defeat of this bill (to stop the menace of banner ads and popups) reaffirms that this is the Law of the Land.

If you're a Democrat, do the decent thing and be embarrassed. Your party isn't right all the time, any more than Libertarians or Republicans are. Admit that your side got this one wrong, contribute to the EFF, and go to local party meetings and tell them that as a loyal democrat you're astonished that you'd see normally smart good people doing this.

I'm a Republican, but I try to have the intellectual honesty to admit when my party has it wrong-- which we often are. You're doing your party a service by keeping them honest.