I told you the Campaign Finance Reform Act was a bad idea. Drudge has the latest:
The Federal Election Commission next month will begin looking at tightening restrictions on political activities on the Internet, ROLL CALL reports Monday.
The FEC is planning to examine the question of how Internet activities, when coordinated with candidates' campaigns, fit into the definition of 'public communications.
Specifically, the FEC is planning to examine the question of how Internet activities, when coordinated with candidates' campaigns, fit into the definition of "public communications." While coordinated communications are considered campaign contributions and therefore subject to strict contribution limits, current FEC regulations adopted in 2002 carve out an exemption for coordinated political communications that are transmitted over the Internet.
Hoo-boy.
Bye, all!
I'm moving to Australia!
Well that's easy: we're all journalists!
The media seems to be free of most such restrictions as long as they call themselves "the press"...
Just call yourself a news source and apparently you can coordinate, lie, cheat, raise and spend money, publish slanted stories, and blatantly push your political adgenda to your heart's content and bypass all campaign finance laws. I mean...look at CBS.
I'm a published contributor to this blog...obviously a worldwide broadcast medium and therefore part of the press...so I'm good. You are too, Stephen. Don't worry!
A sizeable enforcement problem, no?
And, what about that dread drop-post animal....the offshore router/host?
And, what about that dread drop-post animal....the offshore router/host?
That is what I wonder about, also.
why would it be a bad idea if it happens to level the playing field?
I gues it would depend on which side of the fence you stsnad.
Ya' know, after the Constitution's framers got around to ensuring the right to surf the web for porn in public libraries, I really wish they'd thought to protect the right to political speech.
What did Evan Thomas estimate the lift from the press to be? He said it was a 15% boost to the Democrats. Of course, later he retracted that and said it was "only" 5%.
Maybe if we wrote enough laws, we could fix that. Now there's an idea!
I'm gonna' use that one, Doug! Great comment.
It's so amazing that with all these new campiagn finance reforms, that the parties are actually raising even more money. All they're doing is making it harder for the small guy to get a word in.
Precisely, Alexa.
Ross Perot must have really scared them.
Why is this a stupid idea?
Can anyone say dynamic dns?
or dns2go?
How much is a std edition of Win 2003 web server edition?
Movable type is free, isn't it?
How is is Macromedia Contribute?
Voila... home blog server. DIfferent IP address with the same dns name every day...
Not only are the animals out of that particular barn...they've spread into your neighborhood.
It's too late.
Is this the MSM answer to blogs?
I'd just like to take this opportunity to once again thank my illustrious senator John McCain for his contribution to that abomination known as the McCain/Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act.
Thanks so much, Johnny!
You. Stupid. Bastard.
Hello, epam, this is your cable company / ISP / ICANN, guess what, by order of the govt, your domain name can't be looked up any more. All traffic to or from it gets routed to /dev/null. Goodbye.
