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Election Commission Takes a Light Touch With Net Regs
CNet is reporting that the Federal Election Commission released a 96-page volume of internet regulations last Friday. From the article: "The rules [PDF] say that paid Web advertising, including banner ads and sponsored links on search engines, will be regulated like political advertising in other types of media. They also say bloggers can enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech.
They also say bloggers can enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech.
Aren't we lucky, they're so gracious as to allow us our constitutionally protected free speech. Like they had a choice.
RST
This election sponsored by Diebold
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A scheme to shutdown the only avenue for 3rd party candidtates to get the word out. Well F*ck them! ... I'll move my free speech to a server hosted in China if I have to.
It looks like these rules will be a good thing, they should stop politicians from paying "independent" bloggers to mouthpiece for them.
I didn't quite read into them enough to know though.
~= scwizard =~
In what way does regulating the internet in the same way as print media qualify as a light touch? Just seems like fairness to me.
This is not selling out, this is a quality opportunity to allow slashdot readers to interface with the business shakers and movers, the people who define what we'll be using in our desktops this year, next year. Why not share your experiences with AMD products now, and join the IT professionals who're defining an industry.
um, A LONG TIME AGO??
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
What the major parties wanted was for blogs to be exempt from the normal regulations on financing. With the same regulations in place as for the traditional media, we can avoid the situation where paid bloggers swamp the net with propaganda with no oversight or control.
"Freedom of speech on the Internet" indeed. The point was freedom of money to buy political speech while keeping the money trail secret.
Moron.
/. doesn't make it true or new. Calm down.
Just because it's on digg and slams
So nice of them to allow them these freedoms this one time, yet in all other aspects they don't, way to go guys. We'll be huddling in our homes fearing the new SS here soon.
Awwww shucks, thanks!
Now get back to deriving your "just powers from the consent of the governed," asshats.
96 pages of regulations is "light"? Only by government standards, geesh!
..
:)
How about a lighter touch: the US Constitution is about 6 pages.
Or, gosh golly & gee wiz, how about an even lighter touch than that? The first amendment is 45 words
Or how about: HANDS OFF THE INTERNET YOU ASSHATS!
Yeah, I think that sounds better
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
Their rhetoric implies that at some point in the future, these things will be regulated in the name of 'political speech.' Do you all realize how broad that phrase really is? It has no basis in reality, rather it is a variable waiting to be 'interpreted.' Bans on advertisements against political candidates (in x case at y time) is the logical precursor to bans on talking about political candidates (in x case at y time). How long do you suppose this will last? Until the next crisis? The next war? The next controversy? These regulations are not brick walls meant to prevent future incursions into our liberties, they are stepping stones.
At this point, I'm going to sit here in a country that is *not* in north america and laugh my head off.
Freedom, it appears, is the freedom to do as you are told in the manner you are told to do it.
The Internet (American Netizens, in this case) should, therefore, be regulating the Federal Election Commission, not the other way around.
If we permit them to frame this as "allowing" us inherent rights, we are giving freedoms up, both locally (America), and globally, as in the whole Net, unnecessarily.
Notice it specified only endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech.
So if its neither, such as a discussion about how bad your car is, or some technical discussion about evolution, then its not protected online.
Oh, and they always have a choice. They can restrict our rights as much as they want in law. Then its up to us to take them to court to prove they have overstepped their bounds and have the law tossed. On our dime.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is it me, or should the parent have a disclaimer "This advertisement paid by..." for a signature? And what does "sharing your experiences" about AMD have to do with the US Government regulating free speech on the internet, which is the topic of this story?
Makes me want to go buy an Intel product.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
why don't you ... ask the journalists to affirm or deny they are being paid by politicians for their stories? You can challenge them to go on record. You could even get them to do this contractually, if you wanted to. (Via subscription, since you're paying them money ... )
A contract needs both an offer and acceptance. No major print publication would accept such a contract at prices that the median residential customer can afford.
Require full disclosure of who's-financing-what (for $ amounts above a certain cutoff), but otherwise political speech should be largely unregulated as the First Amendment states. Even that restriction probably shouldn't get past the First Amendment but it'd be an improvement over the current jobs program for lawyers.
The cure for free speech is more speech.
You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket...
land of the free :DDD
The FEC is the number one reason we continue our slide towards tyranny. They regulate speech where the 1st Amendment prevents them from trampling on that basic right. They regulate money -- and money is a store of your labor to be used as you please (a form of expression). They regulate who can run as a candidate as they completely destroyed the ability for an independent to raise the needed funds due to the incumbent protection clauses. They also have taken huge steps to destroying the voice of people who are not just against one party or another but against the entire system.
These laws and these regulations are so counter-freedom that it amazes me that people don't READ THE LAWS and see how attrocious they are. McCain-Feingold should be renamed "The Incumbent Protection Act" -- read it carefully and you'll see that it was written to kill the Greens and the Libertarians and any other 3rd party by reducing their ability to gain financing from a few campaign donors.
The problem with elections is not money, not corporations, not anything that the politicians say it is. The problem with elections is that the seat one is trying to win has too much power. If you want to fix elections, fix the political seat -- reduce the power of government to where it should be under the Constitution. When the power is reduced, no amount of money will create protectionism, favoritism and cronyism.
I don't want to be able to enjoy the freedoms because government says I "can." I want to use my freedoms to never worry that government might tell me how narrow those freedoms are becoming.
Freedom of speech only "lightly" abridged (for now). Yeay.
>The very ANTITHESIS of freedom of speech, as this would doom anonymity.
An important point.
If the speech involves spending money and a single "speaker" can affect the outcome of the entire election, don't we need transparency? If government contractor Remora, Inc. pays $100 to each of 100,000 bloggers in the district of Senator Porkbringer who sits on the Appropriations Committee, isn't it best to have that fact on opensecrets.org? So we'll know what's going on when Senator Porkbringer tells us that national security requires giving a no-bid contract to Remora?
How the hell did this get modded insightful?
The SCOTUS isn't there to punish unconstitutional policy, just block it. Accountability should come only through elections. If we equated getting overruled by the courts with treason, that would destroy the system of checks and balances by elevating the courts to a position similar to the Iranian "Council of Guardians." There's simply no way such a system wouldn't be abused: imagine what a court stuffed with Republican appointees would do to a Democrat president, or vice versa.
Ironic how your post about respecting the Constitution reveals a very basic incomprehension about how the system created by that Constitution actually works.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
That is a very important point. We want to know when companies are influencing the election of politicians who are going to give them a sweet deal. Its imperitive to ensure that our nation doesn't turn into a corporate controlled state. Oops. Too late.
However, if I, as an independent citizen, wish to publish a political blog under the name Publius, I should have that right as well. I shouldn't have to file forms or disclose my funding if I wish to exercise my right to free speech. Nor should the government be able to tell me that I can't talk about the subject of politics simply because it is an election season.
My Sysadmin Blog
Not necessarily your labor; EG, an inherited fortune. It's also philisophically debateable as to what extent a return on investment represents a store of your labor per se. It's also more accurate to say that money is an accumulation of the benefit, not the labor itself... a subtle point the early communist theorists failed to understand, to their peril and the world's detriment. (Even "benefit" is an oversimplification....)
That the use of your "money" constitutes a form of expression isn't in question, but your right to do so is NOT unlimited in an election... or would you care to argue that direct buying of votes should be a protected form of expression??? I don't disagree that the FEC is at least symptomatic of a larger problem, but I don't think they are the root cause.
The problem with elections is that the seat one is trying to win has too much power. If you want to fix elections, fix the political seat -- reduce the power of government to where it should be under the Constitution. When the power is reduced, no amount of money will create protectionism, favoritism and cronyism.
I believe your thinking may be a little fuzzy. "Reduced" is not the right word; far too often reducing the power of something means that power is only moved to another entity, which is then the new focus for the struggle. What you need is for the power to be dissipated, so that it requires the united action of more individuals for it to be brought into play again.
I believe your solution also is an oversimplification that ignores the history which created the problem in the first place. Much of the government's increase in power during the 20th century was to challege the power accumulated by corporations towards the end of the 19th. The alternative was civil war and a likely ascendancy of communism... which we fortunately avoided, thanks in part to FDR. Simply dissippating governmental powers without addressing the problems which caused that initial accumulation means that you will either face the original problem again, or the power will immediately reaccumulate... possibly both.
If you want to do this right, you need to find an alternate solution to the problems of the inequities of corporate power before you weaken the government. I don't think your concerns are misdirected, but I think your analysis is flawed.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The FEC was directed by the courts to issue regulations, this actually is not so bad. Had Congress passed HR 1606 Internet political activity would have been exempt. If HR 4900 passes it will be much worse.
Also, watch out for huge numbers of splogs put on every blog server by the candidates' campaign organizations. which will all be listed under "online communications expenses" on their campaign filing forms.
Um, that's amendment 10...
Um, no it isn't.
Well, just damn... I was *so* thinking of Amendment X as I was reading, and I suffered a *tremendous* brainfart obviously... my apologies... RW
Offering competitive advertising rates to any political group smart enough to work out that I'm outside the regulatory powers of the FEC. Don't let your hard earned campaign war chest be controlled by a delusional government department. Call or Email for a free quote.
The founder's tradition of anonymous speech had *nothing* to do with "bandwidth", it had to do with knowing the truth about the government. Most importantly, it is important that citizens know when they're hearing honest opinion, and when they're hearing political campaigning.
Political parties would *love* that the citizens NOT KNOW when they're being fed propaganda, so that the citizens are more likely to swallow it.
The FEC's decision does NOT apply to people honestly expressing their opinions, but to people producing political mulch for citizens to read - that is, just like in other media, if it's a paid expression by a political party or candidate, then the citizen has the right to know the whole truth about it, including that it's not an "honest" opinion of one human, but that it is product of a political campaign.
A newspaper that is NOT a paid printing from a political party or campaign is viewed as being the opinion of the person or persons running the paper. As such, you should take it with a grain of salt, like always.
Blogs were invented for individuals to use, as opposed to big commercial forums produced and/or censored by companies. As a result, people often expect that when someone who appears to be a human is talking to them in blog postings (like this one), that the human is expressing personal views, not paid-for campaign compost.
That's what this is about - being careful that expectations (however naive) are not used to fool the voters.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
"The Constitution was better as a document enumerating the things government CAN do, with the assumption being that all other powers are strictly excluded"
The bill of rights does very specifically, strictly exclude the Federal government from exercising other powers. Read the 10th amendment.
Bill Of Rights Transcript
It says that any power not granted by this constitution to the Federal Gov't is reserved to the states or to the people. This was to prevent the Fed Gov from expanding and squeezing the states and the people into oblivion. Unfortunately, it's the least supported amendment of all.
Only the courts uphold this, and only when a law is constitutionally challenged - that is, someone has to be hurt by a law before this amendment is used to stop gov't abuse.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Is like when I hear a politician say "We can't pay for that tax cut". It shows the porker has forgotten - it ain't his money. It's our money.
It really flames me to hear stuff like that.
Rights are what you're born with, cuz God, FSM, or evolution made it a part of being human. If you're not alive, you're not human - you're worm food. If you have no liberty, you're not living as humans need to live.
And every human will, unless opressed, pursue happiness.
This is what's meant in the Declaration by "These truths we hold to be self evident..."
We speak cuz we're human - and we speak our opinions, not gov't approved drivel, cuz we're human.
Govt can neither grant nor take away a true right. All it can do is protect or oppress those who act according to their rights.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Bloggers CAN enjoy the FREEDOM.
If you aks anyone educated in english, they have AFFIRMED speech on the internet is PROTECTED by the first amendment, while COMMERCE is subject to regulation.
If they wanted to take it away, they would not have so unambigiously announced the freedom.
There is nothing "new" about this law, it's not totalitarian, and it only affects capaign spending. This idea that the government is EEEVUL for passing this law is straight up stupid.
Why do people feel the need to make their own arguments, regardless of reality?
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin