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The Grassroots Blogging Provision's Real Purpose
ICantFindADecentNick writes "The Register carries a report on the defeat of Section 220 of the reform bill (the grassroots provision). In an all-too-familiar scene, bloggers, Slashdot readers and several news outlets were taken in by the hype surrounding a provision in the Senate ethics reform bill that would have required grassroots lobbying firms to register with the US Congress. To be fair, some commenters did see through the deception but the campaign, organized by Richard Viguerie, still succeeded. From the article: 'Viguerie, for those not familiar with the tarnished panoply of backroom players in American politics, pioneered the use of direct mail techniques for conservative causes, and has been called the "funding father" of the modern conservative movement. His ad agency currently handles direct mail campaigns for non-profits seeking to stimulate grassroots activity or raise funds from the general public.'" This is, of course, The Register. Still interesting to look back at the news from another point of view.
Only a bastion of fine news reporting like slashdot can say something like this without sounding pretentious.
"Look back"?
People were screaming about the whole thing being a complete fabrication each time it was posted on Slashdot. You could have just, you know, read the comments?
This is, of course, The Register. Still interesting to look back at the news from another point of view. submitter makes it seem almost wistful that he and a bunch of other tards were taken in hook line and sinker when all they had to do was read and see what was really going on. it also makes me wonder how many posters here are paid shills of a misinformation campaign although as they say, "don't attribute to malice what is perfectably explainable by stupidity."
"pioneered the use of direct mail techniques for conservative causes"
So, you're saying that liberal causes haven't figured out how to use the mail box yet?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Shouldn't we get an apology from the /. "editors", since they swallowed Vigurie's spin hook line and sinker -- not once, but twice?
(Of course, since they apparently don't read the comments, where many people pointed out the truth on this issue, I expect the answer is probably no.)
Read my blog.
Since the provision was designed to silence some conservative grassroots guy, it must be okay. Surely there wouldn't be any unintended consequences.
Yeah... whoever heard of a Slashdot reader not RTFA and jumping at whatever conclusions are presented in the blurb.... I must be new here.
Kinda funny that the bill to try to prevent astroturfing was defeated largely by astroturfing.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
It's claiming that it's a good idea to have astroturfing paid political shills register, which was what the bill was about. Apparently you are missing the part where all the reporting on the bill was complete fabrications and had very little to do with the reality of what it covered.
1) Senate proposes bill. Bill contains provisions that businesses will probably not like, but Senate feels pressure to do so from the public (?).
2) Influential conservative stirs up "public opinion" against bill's provisions.
3) Bill's provision is struck. Senate cites "will of the people" and shrugs. Senate gets to say "we tried, you didn't want it." Businesses keep astroturing. Everyone wins except the public who, as always, loses.
Just how often are the provisions of bills being discussed in Congress truly struck out because the people got wind of what was going on and spoke out--without some mouthpiece or rein-holding group to speak "for" us, or some vague poll number or other inaccurate metric telling the Congressfolks what we think, or some massive letter-writing campaign by just 2000 very angry people?
Yeah, I can understand how Gonzales was confused that where the Constitution said that "the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended..." meant that it could be suspended anytime he felt like it. But what I don't understand is how you think that where the Constitutions says "Congress shall make no law..." means that Congress can make any law on speech or that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" means that all powers not given to Congress in the Constitution actually are given to Congress in the Constitution--namely regulating political speech by corporations. If you can tell me the sections of the Constitution that I might have missed that actually give Congress the power to regulate corporate political speech please feel free to list them. Otherwise it seems to me that they are reserved powers and can't be tampered with without a Constitutional amendment.
But then again, I'm just an amateur. I'm not a lawyer like Gonzales who can read a sentence that says "No" and interpret it to mean "Yes." I guess I'm just not educated enough to understand what the Constitution really means. Maybe you have to look at it with a blacklight or read it upside down to understand it.
Ignoring the issue with the readership, what would the registration accomplish anyway? You can already see who contributes to the politicans' campaigns, and that doesn't seem to do change anything.
No, you don't have to register to have a personal opinion, or to voice it in public. The bill was worded very specifically to make sure that only if you were paid to have an opinion (and only if you reached more than 500ppl), would you then have to register - just like if you are paid to have an opinion & print something in a magazine, in a newspaper, etc - all of those paid for by notices on the bottom of the TV adds - that's what it was about.
It might be interesting to look back at those threads and see if we could figure out who the astroturfers are.
I've also thought, more ambitiously, that it might be interesting to see if there were discernible patterns to postings by astroturfers, or to threads on which this was happening. I'm not sure what exactly to look for (especially since we don't have access to the IP addresses), but their still might be some pattern of boiler plate text, or things block copied from other sites, or...
Ideas?
--MarkusQ
It's a follow up to a previous article. It corrects that article's mistatement of the facts of the legislative provisions to prevent paid-lobbyists ($25,000 or more in one quarter of a year and a specific client) from using "blogging" as a loophole in the lobbyist reporting rules. The previous article pretended the legislation the Republicans all voted against would have hindered all bloggers. In fact, as this "correction states, the Republicans all voted to prevent proper reporting of paid-for lobbying activity online (when done on behalf of a specific client's interests). You may not think correcting the record is news. I do.
The bill would have infringed the right of free speech. It's actually quite clear.
Astroturf campaigns are free speech. Fining groups engaged in astroturf campaigns is an infringement on free speech. Requiring speakers to "register" in order to be allowed to speak is not free speech.
All this BS justification is simply "we're in favor of free-speech only when we agree with the motives, methods, or message of the speaker". Agreeable speech doesn't need to be protected from the people who agree with it.
Being /. it's claiming that it was a good provision because it was not really about targeting free speech, but rather about targeting a "tarnished" "backroom" "conservative." That being the goal, anything goes.
So the FSF and EFF pay their bloggers $100000 or more a year? I know a guy in the EFF who'd feel rather cheated if that were the case.
-Lars
I don't have a completely fixed opinion on the astoturfing bill except that is was vauge and thus dangerous, but apparently the IRS is getting into the same game so there is more going on I think: http://slashdot.org/~Ungrounded+Lightning/journal/ .
I think you need to be logged in to see this link.
Posting bill text might not have been as useful as you think, unless it went along with a pretty detailed analysis, because there was a lot of interaction between different sections.
As for groupthink, that was happening on both sides, and still is (except now the default direction of the groupthink is reversed). Section 220 had a problem in it, which The Register article mentions. That problem is exactly what was bugging me about the bill: that anyone paid enough to do "stimulation of grassroots lobbying" would have had to register as a lobbyist, and be subject to lobbying regulations, even if they have no direct contact with public officials. That's a heavy-handed way of dealing with the problem, and I think that it could even run afoul of the first amendment. So given the flawed nature of Sec 220, people on both sides had a point. In its proposed form, though, I'm glad the section was rejected.