Political Bloggers May Be Forced to Register

Thebes writes "Under Senate Bill S.1, political bloggers with a readership of over 500 who comment on policy matters or hope to incite 'grassroots' action amongst their readers would be forced to register with the Federal Government as lobbyists."

Comments

We just want to see zee papers

[udderly]

Huh. I thought it was only the Republicans who were after our 1st Amendment rights. But here are the Democrats assaulting our freedoms again by trying to control who says what.

<sarcasm>Oh, never mind, they just want to make sure we have "our papers in order" before we can criticize them.</sarcasm> And we thought that they would be for our rights. But it looks like they are just interested in using the power to stay in power.

It's time to lose the naivte and realize that politicians (whether Republicans or Democrats) are only interested in one thing--getting re-elected.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[Chibi Merrow]

Bloggers who don't receive an income in exchange for their work aren't affected.

So if I use ads and merchandise to support my site and try to make something of a living off of my writing I have to register as a lobbyist? Then why shouldn't news anchors/columnists have to do the same? One of the things that (supposedly) led to the American Revolution was the stamp tax. Any attempt to restrict the free press is bad, no matter the consequences. And nothing is more "free press" than a private citizen deciding to write down their thoughts and distribute them to people, for profit or otherwise.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[Dan Slotman]

Unopposed distribution of political speech, including the distribution of political pamphlets, has always been legal. At the very least, this law will cause a "chilling effect" on political bloggers, paid or otherwise. At its worst, it could rob our generation of our Johnathan Swifts, our Thomas Paines, and our James Madisons, all of whom published political pamphlets anonymously or under a pseudonym. Certainly this law would not prevent anonymous contributions to political thought, but my point is that political speech should not be infringed, regardless of its motivation. Stopping FUD is not worth sacrificing unopposed free speech.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[Rob the Bold]

Well basically the problem with any ethics or campaign finance reform is that there is no "clean" way to control the influence of the American Enterprise Institute and other various well-financed corporate think tanks without also regulating mymothersbasement.blogspot.com. Otherwise it wouldn't be "fair" and has no hope of passing.

We really went wrong when we (or the SCOTUS, really) decided that corporations had "rights" just as if they were real people. Really big, rich, immortal people. Most of our campaign finance problems could be curbed if we overturned that finding. Make the government accountable to natural persons only. Sure, the rich would still have an advantage over the poor, but at least we'd control the inhuman sociopaths that we call corporations.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[Speed Pour]

This makes sense...Of course the government wants to register bloggers as lobbyists. It's the same as re-branding people against the invasion of Iraq as unpatriotic. The word 'lobbyist' is seen so negatively that it instantly detracts from any respect a blogger has.

Just imagine that first article written in the New York Times that mentions a blogger with a small letter note beside the name saying Registered Lobbyist #958970. Good-bye reputation...

Or the first unregistered blogger who says something the government really doesn't like...fines, jail time, mandatory censorship? After all, they broke laws that lobbyists must conform to. This is a simple and systematic way to quiet down the people that aren't under control.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[paeanblack]

That's the thing about free speech. If you define "free but you can't deceive", then it's not free anymore. And I don't like that slippery slope, so I'm willing to live with being deceived. In the end it's my fault for believing them, not their fault for writing junk.

If you are being paid to advertise a position, it was never free(libre) speech in the first place. It's commercial speech and has been regulated for centuries. You can't advertise Twinkies as a cure for cancer if you make money selling Twinkies, and society is far better off for having restricted such fraudulent or deceptive speech.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[Ash Vince]

Here Here.

The fact remains that no matter how many guns you can get your hands on there is always one group who will have more. They are the various law enforcement organisations of the US (or any other country for that matter). You think owning a firearm of any kind will do you any good if the government decided to get rid of you?

Whether you agree with the pro-gun lobby or not the fact remains that if you were a threat to the government and they found out, the special forces they sent in could brush you aside without the slightest amount of trouble. They are better trained than you could hope to be (while trying to hold down a full time job anyway) and better equiped. They also have infintely more experience at killing people.

Now I am sure a great many soldiers would never dream of harming their own citizens. However I bet there are some that would follow any order they were given. The germans circa 1940 were not some alternate race of people bred for evil, they were just human beings like you and me, yet some of them ended up gaurding concentration camps that most of the population never knew existed.

I would also bet that with all the psychological tests soldiers are put through any decent comanding officer will have a pretty good idea who would follow his orders even if they knew them to be dubious.

So with all this in mind how much protection does that gun you keep under your pillow protect you? And even more so if the government force you to keep it locked away on the other side of the room lest your kids get at it. They could just grab you off the street and there are very few states nowadays that allow the carrying of a concealed firearm in public.

The biggest thing protecting us from all these things is not guns, but other people and how they would react to seeing people disappear. How they would tell other people and word would spread. Some may even write about this on the internet letting the whole world know what was going on and it would be very difficult to stop them unless you knew who they were ahead of time and could silence them in the first wave.

The first thing you do when seizing control of a country is quietly sieze control of the media without the populace knowing. But if the media are the people the people that becomes alot more difficult, especially if they can blog with relative anonmity using a few tools. I would hope that a great many readers of slashdot could do a pretty good job of posting to the net while hiding their identity, and not just by posting as AC. But if you can make anonymously blogging about the government a crime in itself then you make things a little easier.

Remember - Knowledge is power.

Re:We just want to see zee papers

[falconwolf]

It's the same as re-branding people against the invasion of Iraq as unpatriotic.

Not to pick nits, but if you don't support your nation during time of war, then, yes, you are unpatriotic.

It's the utmost of patriotism to protest the policies of the government.

Falcon

Do editorial columnists in Newspapers...

[Assmasher]

...or news commentators have to do this? This is, pardon the crassness, total and unmitigated bullshit.

Re:FUD

[amliebsch]

"Lobbyists" are the guys who attempt to persuade politicians directly. This is about persuading voters. Shouldn't there be a difference?

Re:Google/banner ads

[MarkusQ]

You do realize that many blogs have some kind of advertising to help pay for the costs of running the website, right?

You bet. I also realize that many of them like doughnuts, have siblings, and read books. Further, I concede that they often have heartfelt opinions about matters of punctuation and some (but not all) of them did well in algebra.

But most importantly, I can recognize a straw man from a kilometer away. Bloggers taking advertising doesn't mean that their advertisers are paying them to influence public opinion, anymore than the lawyer whose face is plastered all over the city buses around here is paying people to use public transportation.

Nice try though.

--MarkusQ

Re:Read the bill, not the article

[trianglman]

They will be harrassed only if they are paid not just for lobbying through their blog. This protects everyone's rights by showing who is paying whom. Transparency in government is the best way to protect those governed.

Actually, strictly speaking, he's right

[iendedi]

And the way this could be used is if someone here on slashdot raised the eyebrows of a powerful lobby (err.. politician) and they decided to go after you. They could put you in jail for saying something they don't like, on the grounds that you are lobbying without a permit.