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."

Comments

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[ArcherB]

I could be wrong, but I think the target was talk radio and/or conservative sites that are advertiser funded like LittleGreenFootballs, but not MoveOn.org, which is funded by contributors (George Soros)

Re:It was about stopping astroturf not bloggers

[MrWGW]

Of course, then you run into a whole can of worms in the process of determining who was paid versus who wasn't. One can conceivably imagine the provision being used as an excuse for law enforcement (or worse) to rifle through bloggers' bank accounts to determine evidence of "illegal payment." This could cause all kinds of hassles, especially for bloggers who use their blog as a source of income and who might (as is often the case with self-employed workers) not follow proper proceedures for recording who paid them for what in terms of legal, legitimate advertising. Thus, it could be alleged that they had illegally accepted money for a political post on their blog without having registered as a lobbyist, and they could face jail time, et cetera. It is of course axiomatic that the ruling party of the moment could use this as a tool with which to quickly silence opposition.

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[rossifer]

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.

Your speculation might have some merit if the typical blogger would have had to register under the act. As it turns out, however, the act would have only required bloggers who make and/or spend more than $25,000/year on a politics position blog to register. This article should be titled "Bill to Treat Astroturfing Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated".

The actual grass-roots bloggers (and whatever their criticism of whoever they wanted to criticize) were never in jeopardy. But the Republicans and some Democrats made sure that astroturfers aren't in jeopardy either. Most of the Democrats were on the ethical side on this one. Sadly, they couldn't get a majority today.

Ross (registered Republican, but not very proud of that association right now)

Re:Conspiracy theorize all you want

[Overly Critical Guy]

The ACLU was against the bill. Are the ACLU a group of Republicans?

Re:Good

[hey!]

Can anyone explain why there are _any_ limits on political speech?

Because there will always be de facto limits on speech whether or not there are de jure limits.

For example, no country at war is going to allow people to publish information about troop deployments. In such a situation it is important to define reasonable de jure limitations on speech, because in the heat of battle government will act to restrict speech, whether it is legally empowered to do so or not. Having reasonable limitations thought out in advance and enacted into law acts constrains those actions.

Another example is obscenity. The regulations on obscenity do not really prevent anybody who wants obscene materials from getting them. What they do is tell people who are up in arms about obscenity to go home: anybody who is receiving obscene materials is an adult or near adult seeking them out. The restriction on obscene material are a burden on producers and consumers, but on balance they ensure that such materials remain available.

These restrictions are like liberatarian antibodies. The immunize the body politic against severe censorship.

Members, employees, etc.

[mdsolar]

My Electric Coop keeps me informed through new letters included with my bill about legislative developments that affect rates and such. I'm a member of the coop so I guess that would be excluded.

My cable company tries to get me to write congress so they can take over the land line market. This might be included because I am a customer not a memeber.

My cell phone company has had some gripes too and again I'm a customer not a member.

Now, the solar power company I sell for has a definite agenda when it comes to net metering laws: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/solar-power-am way-way.html. I'm not an employee, I'm an associate. I might however initiate a company-wide announcement that makes it to most of the customers that supports the agenda to increase access to net metering. Am I retained? Maybe. Am I communicating with more that 500 people? Yes, sales are growing incredibly. Am I a lobbyist in the way the bill intended? Very hard to say but I'd guess yes.

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.