FEC to extend campaign-finance to Web

To view the entire article, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43140, Friday, March 4, 2005, FEC to extend campaign-finance to Web,
Posted: March 4, 2005, 1:00 a.m. Eastern

This is really dangerous. A few days ago, we blogged about your property rights being up for grabs. Now your First Amendment rights are in as severe danger, and you should fire off emails, letters, and telephone calls to your representatives.

Read some of this:

The Federal Election Commission is beginning the process of extending its controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet, potentially threatening political blogging and online punditry, a member of the panel warns.

The Internet was exempted from the McCain-Feingold regulations in a 4-2 vote by the FEC in 2002, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the decision last fall, reports CNET News.com. (emphasis mine)

The judge wrote in her opinion that the commission's "exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines" the campaign finance law's purposes.

The panel's three Republican members, including [Bradley] Smith, voted to appeal the Internet-related part of the judge's decision, but they needed four votes and were unable to convince one of the Democrat members to join them.

The campaign finance law has a press exemption, but the panel is considering whether bloggers or online journals fit that description.

Smith said questions will arise, such as whether a Web page's link to a candidate's site constitutes a contribution.

How would that be calculated? The FEC already has received an advisory opinion suggesting the value placed on a blog that praises a politician or links to a campaign website might be based on what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.

"It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did," Smith told CNET. "And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in. Line drawing is going to be an inherently very difficult task. And then we'll be pushed to go further. Why can this person do it, but not that person?"

Smith said Kollar-Kotelly's opinion is not limited to ads: "She says that any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum. The problem with coordinated activity over the Internet is that it will strike, as a minimum, Internet reporting services."

[G]rassroots Internet activity is in danger unless someone in Congress is willing to stand up and say, "Keep your hands off of this, and we'll change the statute to make it clear..." "...[I]t's very likely that the Internet is going to be regulated, and the FEC and Congress will be inundated with e-mails saying, 'How dare you do this!'"

Speak out now or suffer in silence. This is a very big deal. Not only must we protect the internet, but we must roll back this McCain-Feingold Campaign law.

Not only should each one of us be individually responsible for our words, but we should also be responsible for whom we support for public office and how much we give. This is not a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc. issue: It is an American issue. And while we are at it, it is time to end judicial activism.