Indicating once again that the First Amendment is not for Americans, the government (aka "Big Brother") is once again looking for new ways to regulate free speech. This time, the perpetrator is the Federal Elections Commission, which is looking at regulating blogs and websites, and fining or jailing those who break the "rules" (whatever they might be). As CNet reports:

Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.

In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. "The commission's exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines" the campaign finance law's purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But because they couldn't get the three Democrats to go along with them, what Smith describes as a "bizarre" regulatory process now is under way.

This is a prospect that even conservatives, who don't seem to much appreciate the First Amendment, must not relish. c|net interviews Smith:

Q: What rules will apply to the Internet that did not before?

A: ...If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.

Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption?...

Wait a minute! Who is the government to give us an "exemption" to a law that restricts free speech?!

How can the government place a value on a blog that praises some politician?

How do we measure that? Design fees, that sort of thing? The FEC did an advisory opinion in the late 1990s (in the Leo Smith case) that I don't think we'd hold to today, saying that if you owned a computer, you'd have to calculate what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.

It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did. And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in....

How about a hyperlink? Is it worth a penny, or a dollar, to a campaign?

I don't know. But I'll tell you this. One thing the commission has argued over, debated, wrestled with, is how to value assistance to a campaign....

Then what's the real impact of the judge's decision?

The judge's decision is in no way 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....

How do you see this playing out?

There's sensitivity in the commission on this. But remember the commission's decision to exempt the Internet only passed by a 4-2 vote.

This time, we couldn't muster enough votes to appeal the judge's decision. We appealed parts of her decision, but there were only three votes to appeal the Internet part (and we needed four). There seem to be at least three commissioners who like this.

Then this is a partisan issue?

Yes, it is at this time. But I always point out that partisan splits tend to reflect ideology rather than party. I don't think the Democratic commissioners are sitting around saying that the Internet is working to the advantage of the Republicans.

One of the reasons it's a good time to (fix this) now is you don't know who's benefiting. Both the Democrats and Republicans used the Internet very effectively in the last campaign.

What would you like to see happen?

I'd like someone to say that unpaid activity over the Internet is not an expenditure or contribution, or at least activity done by regular Internet journals, to cover sites like CNET, Slate and Salon. Otherwise, it's very likely that the Internet is going to be regulated....

What happens next?

It's going to be a battle, and if nobody 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," then I think grassroots Internet activity is in danger....

Senators McCain and Feingold have argued that we have to regulate the Internet, that we have to regulate e-mail. They sued us in court over this and they won.

If Congress doesn't change the law, what kind of activities will the FEC have to target?

We're talking about any decision by an individual to put a link (to a political candidate) on their home page, set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet....

Why wouldn't the news exemption cover bloggers and online media?

Because the statute refers to periodicals or broadcast, and it's not clear the Internet is either of those. Second, because there's no standard for being a blogger, anyone can claim to be one, and we're back to the deregulated Internet that the judge objected to....

So if you're using text that the campaign sends you, and you're reproducing it on your blog or forwarding it to a mailing list, you could be in trouble?

Yes....

Now we start to see the price paid for the mainstream media's spinning of "the bloggers" as being a new centralized media source.

What they don't get is that the "bloggers" are the citizens. We're just the ones who've picked up on the opportunity -- which is free to anyone who wants to do it.

Let's look at the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So how do Senators McCain and Feingold, these FEC commissioners, and this Federal Judge, come to this idea that the right of free speech of the people must be abridged if they do it online, in writing or video, instead of standing on a box in the middle of a town square?

Is free speech free if we have to put a dollar amount on every link and keep some sort of financial valuation and tabulation of blog entries that happen to express a political point of view?

The internet is not a one-way voicebox, it is an interconnected network ("inter"-"net") that offers interactive interactions between citizens (and everyone else in the world).

We always thought that the biggest threat to free speech on the internet was from the corporate establishment that runs things and finds free speech and dissent inconvenient and unprofitable. But this first broadside is coming from the political establishment.

Why?

I suggest we ask Senator John McCain, who according to polls is one of the most popular politicians in America, what the f*ck he's thinking. In fact, it's a good idea to contact all your elected representatives.

This is an offense to the United States Constitution and the citizens of this country.

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