as a leader in the Internet. Like those who create
the worms and viruses, we would have to house our
blogs and email on computers situated in other
countries. Canada comes to mind. What a great boon
to our neighbors to the North!
If I can write letters to my friends detailing what an
evil force the Bush adinistration has been, do I have
to count that in my contributions to the Democrats?
Further, if you are going to have to pro rate the
computer use to come up with a cost, then we could all
hook our 386 computers to the SETI site when we
weren't using it or, if we have powerful computers,
while we are using them. We could set up wireless
hubs in our areas and share the cost of the wireless
(hmmm...my Internet ISP is about $39 per month spread
among 400 people or more. I could be a very cheap
political activist! Much cheaper than railing against
the Republicans in long hand with 37 cent stamps.)
Controlling the Internet could work in the favor of
true grassroots efforts as opposed to the mock antics
of the Republicans...that is if they could actually
control the Internet.
One theory of the fall of communism in the Soviet
Union was that it was due to the inceasing flow of
information over computers that those in power could
not control.
I can see why the Republicans would want to control
the Internet, but what I think they fail to realize
(although the on-going evolution of peer-to-peer
should have given them a hint) is that the creative
evolution of Internet technologies are an avenue for
revolt among the young. Try to stamp out the Internet
as we know it and it will transmorgify into something
else and grow stronger.
The Internet is about free speech and freedom of ideas
which our mainline press has abandoned.
If the Congress thought they had an uproar over the
Urban Legend that the US Postal Serice was going to
charge for emails, they have not seen anything yet.
Maybe this will be the straw that breaks corporate
America's hold on our elected officials! Maybe, like
the Soviet Union, this will cause the overthrow of the
Republicans!
The coming crackdown on blogging
March 3, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
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.
CNET News.com spoke with Smith about the Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the
McCain-Feingold law, and its forthcoming extrusion
onto the Internet.
Q: What rules will apply to the Internet that did not
before?
A: The commission has generally been hands-off on the
Internet. We've said, "If you advertise on the
Internet, that's an expenditure of money--much like if
you were advertising on television or the newspaper."
The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's
page be a problem? 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? If we don't
give bloggers the press exemption, we have the
question of, do we extend this to online-only journals
like CNET?
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. 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?
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.
Corporations aren't allowed to donate to campaigns.
Suppose a corporation devotes 20 minutes of a
secretary's time and $30 in postage to sending out
letters for an executive. As a result, the campaign
raises $35,000. Do we value the violation on the
amount of corporate resources actually spent, maybe
$40, or the $35,000 actually raised? The commission
has usually taken the view that we value it by the
amount raised. It's still going to be difficult to
value the link, but the value of the link will go up
very quickly.
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.
They're exempt from regulation only because of the
press exemption. But people have been arguing that the
Internet doesn't fit under the press exemption. It
becomes a really complex issue that would strike deep
into the heart of the Internet and the bloggers who
are writing out there today. (Editor's note: federal
law limits the press exemption to a "broadcasting
station, newspaper, magazine or other periodical
publication." )
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, and the FEC and Congress will be inundated
with e-mails saying, "How dare you do this!"
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. The impact would affect e-mail lists,
especially if there's any sense that they're done in
coordination with the campaign. If I forward something
from the campaign to my personal list of several
hundred people, which is a great grassroots activity,
that's what we're talking about having to look at.
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.
Again, blogging could also get us into issues about
online journals and non-online journals. Why should
CNET get an exemption but not an informal blog? Why
should Salon or Slate get an exemption? Should
Nytimes.com and Opinionjournal.com get an exemption
but not online sites, just because the newspapers have
a print edition as well?
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. Also I think some of my colleagues on the
commission would be uncomfortable with that kind of
blanket exemption.
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. In fact, the regulations are very specific that
reproducing a campaign's material is a reproduction
for purpose of triggering the law. That'll count as an
expenditure that counts against campaign finance law.
This is an incredible thicket. If someone else doesn't
take action, for instance in Congress, we're running a
real possibility of serious Internet regulation. It's
going to be bizarre.
-- King Daevid MacKenzie, WLSU-FM 88.9 La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA http://wpr.org/music/ http://ultimajock.blogspot.com "Why do people take drugs anymore, when reality has become a hallucination?" LEWIS BLACK
Apply for Commercial Real Estate loans online and submit your deal to dozens of hungry lenders in just minutes. Loan programs for all types of business and commercial real estate. Apply anytime at http://realestatezoo.com
b i s e x u a l
===============
a bifem.net publication
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
List owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web Site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bisexual
| Yahoo! Groups Sponsor | |||||||
|
|||||||
Yahoo! Groups Links
- To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bisexual/
- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
