Slashdot Mirror
Bill to Treat Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated
Lawrence Person writes "The attempt to require political bloggers to register as lobbyists previously reported by Slashdot has been stripped out of the lobbying reform bill. The vote was 55 to 43 to defeat the provision. All 48 Republicans, as well as 7 Democrats, voted against requiring bloggers to register; all 43 votes in favor of keeping the registration provision were by Democrats."
If anyone had bothered to read the text instead of buying the PR piece by a professional lobbyiest that went up yesterday as news, they would have seen that the provision in question only applied to blogging for pay by a client. Not getting money for your ads or anything else. This was aimed at astroturfing, not bloggers. And paid political speach, which is what we are talking about here, IS regulated already. This wasn't the evil to end all evils and an attack on blogs, it was an attack on lobbyists and it would have likely as not been a good thing if it had gone through.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
This is not a freedom of the press issue. This would have required bloggers who receive money from causes to file as lobbyists. As CNet puts it:
certain political bloggers who make or spend $25,000 per quarter and who encourage readers to contact their elected representatives would be forced to register as lobbyists.
A blogger who gets money from coroporations, parties, or organizations to blog for them is a lobbyist and an astroturfer. This doesn't cover Billy Blogger who talks about the local sports team, or even unsponsored political blogs. It isn't a way to surpress dissent, any more than requiring the same of lobbyists is. "But it's on the Internet" does not change the fact that politically active bloggers with $100,000 salaries or budgets are lobbyists and should be treated like the normal K Street type.
MoveOn.org is a PAC -- they're already very much "registered".
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
This is pretty much proof that it's business as usual with the new Congress, and that Democrats are going to be even more idiotic than the last guys. And no, before you read my sig and think I'm a Republican, I'm a libertarian who just dislikes the left more than the right.
"Sufferin' succotash."
It boils down to them not wanting unrestricted Internet criticism of incumbents. Essentially, Democrats are worried about 2008. The election of so many conservative Democrats, the so-called "Blue Dog" caucus, has split the party, and the more liberal leadership is worried about alienating their base.
Consider it a little education. Your assumption that Republicans are somehow more idiotic and stifling than Democrats was wrong in the first place. If anything, Democrats are the folks who want the government to regulate everything--there is actually a draft bill in California make spanking your child a misdemeanor. You can't even smoke cigarettes in your own home anymore (better tell Barak Obama, a heavy smoker!).
"Sufferin' succotash."
Perhaps you should actually read the bill*. Note that the part labelled "definitions", a "grassroots lobbying firm" is defined as someone who "is retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients; and receives income of, or spends or agrees to spend, an aggregate of $25,000 or more for such efforts in any quarterly period."
The "500 person" rule you're concerned about describes the action of influencing, not the influencer. Specifically: "The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof' does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public."
To be affected, you must be all three of these:
So if you're a regular blogger, you likely are safe.
*=if that doesn't work, search for S.1 on thomas.loc.gov
The phrase "paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying" is not specifically defined in the bill; however, it is specifically defined that the bill does not affect blogs with less than 500 readers. This means you simply have to be a blog with 500 or more readers. Contrary to your little list, there is no minimum defined payment amount in the bill.
You also conveniently left out that large lobby groups who don't rely on public communication are exempted! This means large corporations who spend millions on lobbying aren't even covered by the bill.
To quote the American Family Association's statement:
It's an attempt to silence political bloggers.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Dude, you're completely making up numbers. $25,000 or $100,000 salaries are not mentioned in the bill; there is actually no minimum specified, and "payment" itself is not even defined. Read it for yourself.
This bill would have stifled blogs from encouraging people to contact representatives. Good riddance to section 220.
The phrase "paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying" is not specifically defined in the bill; however, it is specifically defined that the bill does not affect blogs with less than 500 readers. This means you simply have to be a blog with 500 or more readers. Contrary to your little list, there is no minimum defined payment amount in the bill.
No. It's defined in Section 220 as "any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders.". It's in Definitions 18-A, which is right at the top of Section 220.
The payment part is in the definition of a grassroots lobbying firm, which is also in the Definitions section (right below the previous definition).
The LOC links, by the way, only seem to work for 5 minutes.
If you guys need proof of how crazy this was, even the ACLU sided with the Republicans on this one. Ouch!
"Sufferin' succotash."
Actually, it's business as usual for Republican, hiding the facts: the bill applied only to astroturfers being paid over 100K. This wasn't a left-right issue, this was an attempt to control the power of money in campaigns. But if buying elections is part of the "free market," gosh, I guess some Libertarians don't have a problem with it.
Here's a permanent link to the bill in question.
No, actually it was 25,000 a quarter and it required that you be retained by a client. Pretty clear. The 500 thing was totally different than the payment. Read the actual bill and not the crap spin that was spouted by a lobbyist on PR Wire and picked up here yesterday.
And I don't think it was dems not wanting competition. MoveOn.org is equal to anything the right has going in this area, and I can promise you the Dems sure don't want it to have to fall under K street kinda rules.
Ah, but you are a troll posting anonymously...
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Where the submission writeup says "previously reported by Slashdot," it should say "previously misreported by Slashdot." And presupposing that the way Slashdot "reported" it is right, as it happens, is a major piece of spin in this context. Because it's used to set up the rest of the blurb as an insinuation that Democrats were endorsing a bill that restricts freedom of political speech for bloggers (when in fact it's a bill that restricts commercial speech by people paid specifically to pretend they are unpaid advocates.)
Are you adequate?
Take special note of the bolded text: To be subject to this bill, the faux-blogger in question has to be retained by clients AND be paid at a rate equal to a hundred thousand dollars per year in exchange for writing biased political articles [which also exhort thier viewers to action]. Which would make the writers in question not bloggers but lobbyist shills masquerading as bloggers, regardless of political views.
The content of a blog is irrelevant: If it's writer, who has enough readers to attract a lobbying firm's attention, is being paid a hundred thousand dollars a year to shill while ostensibly being just another blogger, it's only right that they be brought under the same kind of disclosure laws as any other lobbyist. This is no different from requiring disclosure of sponsors by political commercials, because the material in question is nothing but political commercials.
And you're right about politicans being self-serving douches: They just gave lobbyists have a channel to funnel money through without anyone knowing.
In fact, this is becoming a web epidemic. It seems that everything is called a blog these days, and the word has lost all meaning.
... and then they built the supercollider.
No offense, but instead of reading "about the bill" at "PR News Wire", which is an organ of the Public Relations business (which includes lobbyists), why don't you actually READ THE BILL?
It's about fundraising bloggers and the astroturf types that have automatic email widgets on their blogs that generate automatic emails to legislators, even offering "sample wording".
Those are lobbyists, pure and simple.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Close, it's $25,000 per quarter, which comes-out to $100,000 per year. Even cheap astroturfing would be allowed.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
That provision would not have made it illegal. It would have required astroturfers to register as lobbyists.
Link to the UCLA document on the bill http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/19/53-css- techniques-you-couldnt-live-without/
Is that supposed to be insulting or something? I've never understood it.
Last I checked, conservatives used to be about small government, low taxes, minimal intrusion, fiscal responsibility, and state powers.
Now we have the federal government deciding that pot grown in the consumer's own backyard is interstate trade in order to override a state's decision to allow medical marijuana. The government's gone even further in wiretapping and invasiveness than Clinton did. Bush is inventing new powers for himself, such as the ability to override the laws he signs, in direct opposition to his oath to execute them faithfully. The only thing the Republicans can still lay claim to is low taxes, at a terrible cost to our nation's fiscal responsibility by cutting them at wartime.
So now that the Republican Party has little to do with conservatives yet still claim they are, there had to be a new label for them to separate this stuff from wholesome conservative ideals.
Since you probably haven't even read it
(B) PAID ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE GENERAL PUBLIC OR SEGMENTS THEREOF- The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof' does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public.
then
(19) GRASSROOTS LOBBYING FIRM.--The term `grassroots lobbying firm' means a person or entity that--
(A) is retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients; and
(B) receives income of, or spends or agrees to spend, an aggregate of $25,000 or more for such efforts in any quarterly period.
then
(4) FILING BY GRASSROOTS LOBBYING FIRMS- Not later than 45 days after a grassroots lobbying firm first is retained by a client to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, such grassroots lobbying firm shall register with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
It clearly defines exactly who is doing grassroots lobbying, exempts those who were targeting less than 500 people, then requires the remainder to register within 45 days of payment. Or it used to, anyway.
"Why? Why do you want our side to look even more technology stupid than the Republicans?"
Look, I don't understand why, but you seem to live in a completely different reality than I do. In my reality, the Democrats often put a lot of effort into silencing people who do not agree with them. Just this week, we've had two separate stories about people trying to squelch dissent. The Democrats are pushing the Fairness Doctrine, a law giving the government arbitrary control over what the media can or can say politically and the weather babe who wants to take away the SOA from weathermen who don't agree with the current global warming consensus. Btw, Michael Criton has written some excellent thoughts about how consensus and science can not legitimately co-exist. Hint: Isn't real science about discovering facts and not aggregating opinions?
And now, we have news that nearly every Democrat in the senate wishes to further restrict the right for the people of this country to speak dissent. It's stalinistic and fascist and it warms my heart to finally see the tables turned on you people who think the Repbulicans are evil goose-stepping fascists themselves.
Yeah, boy, that Patriot act that made it easy for law enforcement to arrest and prosecute terrorists sure is a hell of a lot worse than near continuous efforts by the party in power to take away one of the very most sacred and fundamental rights that make our constitution the greatest document ever written by mankind.
Not to mention the misspelling of "Alderaan"
God I'm a loser.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
The bill targets "bloggers" that are "retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients" and that take in at least $25,000 per quarter
In other words, it doesn't cover bloggers in any true sense of that word as most of us understand it - it covers people masquerading as "grass-roots" bloggers, but who are actually bought and paid for shills making at least $100,000 a year for online "lobbying" efforts.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Just FYI, capitalism and socialism are not really comparable. Capitalism and communism are. Capitalism's ideological father is liberalism, the idea that the individual is the supreme unit of society and the freedom of the individual is the focus of social order. Socialism is the idea that the good of the society as a whole is the focus of the social order.
Capitalism is liberalism's economic facet, communism is socialism's economic facet. Both liberalism and socialism have political facets as well, and this issue, the issue of the ordering of political activity, are treated very differently under liberal and social models. So this issue is *very* relevant to the socialism/liberalism dichotomy, as long as you use the correct terminology.
I hate printers.
I feel pretty good that this was removed from the bill just because it was so vauge that many many activities might come under its scope.
The bill is much more specific than that. The reason that you would not come under the scope of this bill is that you are probably not being paid more than $25,000 per quarter to do your "blogging".
This bill only applies to those shills who are paid more than $100,000 per year to influence opinions through their writing, so even if your announcement goes to a million people you wouldn't be affected. You said that you are not an employee, so even if you are earning more than that per year, you still aren't being paid to do your "blogging", but you are earning your own money through your own selling efforts.
There are many others who are very unethical and are being paid huge amounts of money to influence public opinion without disclosing who their backers are -- this is wrong and this is what the bill would have helped bring out into the open.