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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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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.
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.
The point was freedom of money to buy political speech while keeping the money trail secret.
.. what a DAMN SHAME to have unregulated speech!
..)
Wow
Hey, if you don't want to listen to someone who may have been payed by "Big Politics", then perchance why don't you do something about it, like 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, you could then file a class action against them for violating their agreed upon terms of contract
It's called "taking responsibility". But you'd rather try to take the easy way out (by creating or supporting the creation of) laws which will "do the job" - which they never do. Why? Because it never CAN do it. One may as well write a law suspending gravity. Or try to keep water from flowing back to the oceans. Money will enter politics because money and politics share so much in common - power. Do you think that *maybe* instead of making the government BIGGER (giving it more power), the solution is to make it smaller - so it has less power? And less draw for the power mad troglodytes who infest Congress (and the other two branches)? But as long as it is beneficial to spend millions for a Congressional seat, those millions WILL be spent.
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
In contrast to the current situation where newspapers can spend whatever they want on slanted news and opinions, the bloggers are limited to $5000. Sorry, this is not an even playing field.
Since reading bloggers is a totally user driven experience, compared to adds on TV or even print, there is no reason for any limits.
The USA has a tradition of anonymous political speech, starting with the founders. Both print and broadcast media have bandwidth limits; with enough money you can saturate the channel. That's not true of blogging.
We always have the choice to not storm their headquarters and throw them out of the top floor, too. Forget courts. Tall buildings, much more convincing.
Sig cannot be found.
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.
In the USA at least, the Constitution is the highest law of the land.
Because of this, I never understood why it is that a politician can pass (or help to pass) an unconstitutional law and it can negatively affect the welfare and livelihood and personal freedoms of many people, and yet when this law is finally overturned by a court and found to be unconstitutional, nothing happens to the politician.
If an elected official knowingly (and politicians overwhelmingly tend to be lawyers, so I doubt they can claim ignorance) contradicts the highest law of the land, especially for the purpose of political gain, they should simply be charged with treason and tried in a criminal court, and if found guilty by a court of law, they should be executed or receive life in prison. Let this happen once or twice to establish a precedent and most of the problem will be solved. No one forces a person to run for office; they wanted the power over the lives of millions of Americans, so let them also have the responsibility and personal accountability that goes along with it.
If this became reality, then perhaps if they don't like the Constitution they would go through the process of changing/amending it, rather than simply breaking its laws. You know, like what they tell us to do about laws that we don't like? We must eliminate this idea that government officials are somehow superior to or more soverign than any other citizen - the entire notion of rule of law is threatened by it. They are supposed to be public servants and what's good for the goose truly is good for the gander.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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.
>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.
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We'll be huddling in our homes fearing the new SS here soon.
Maybe you will. I shoot back.
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From the Constitution of the United States, Article III, Section 3:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
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