Be Heard

Comments are being taken on the FEC proposal to subject private internet speech - such as blogs - to federal election regulations. The text of the rule is here. At first blush, it sound innocuous enough:

These proposals are intended to ensure that political committees
properly finance and disclose their Internet communications, without
impeding individual citizens from using the Internet to speak freely
regarding candidates and elections. The Commission has made no final
decision on the issues raised in this rulemaking. Further information appears in the supplementary information that follows.

But as the people at the Center for Democracy and Technology point out:
Unless either Congress or the FEC breaks the mold of pre-existing campaign finance regulations and drafts a single, short and easy-to-understand exemption of individuals’ online speech, the complexity of the rules as a whole will chill individuals’ speech – speech that the campaign finance laws and rules should be promoting.

It also gives some concrete examples of problems: 1) Some bloggers last election year purchased little online "bumper sticker" banners, like "Jowe Blowe supports John Doe for President." Under the proposed rules, this could conceivably be considered 'advertising' such that would bring your blog under the control of the FEC. And once that starts, there are tons of intricate rules to follow. For example, you many be required to post your home address. Not something most of us would willingly do. 2) If an individual, without coordination with any campaign, decides to create and post a short video attacking an incumbent President running for re-election, and he or she spends $251 on the production of the video (aside from the Internet hosting costs), the individual would have to commence filing reports with the FEC. 3) It gets worse if you could somehow be considered part of a corporation. Let's say you've got a big poli-blog and decide to LLC it in order to protect yourself from liability. You could then very well be prohibited from lots of political speech unless you give equal time to all opposing candidates such that you qualify for a news media exemption. Okay, not many of us are gonna get that big. But what about when employers support or encourage blogging (like Larry Lessig or Glenn Reynolds)? Does that make the blog a "corporate blog?" Does that in turn subject it to the FEC corporate rules? There is another well-taken point:

Simply by filing a complaint with the FEC, a political opponent can haul an individual speaker into a civil proceeding in Washington, D.C., one in which the speaker would be well advised to take seriously and hire an attorney. In a world where only a few thousand “speakers” actually used the mass media, and most had access to attorneys, the complaint process may not have been an effective means of harassing an opponent. But where the rules apply to millions of speakers who are engaged in the robust debate that the Internet allows – and there are numerous complex rules to determine whether some Internet speech is covered or not – it is highly likely that the complaint process will be abused.

Anyway, to comment to the FEC directly on the rules go here, read their intricate rules about comment submitting, and follow the link. Or you can go here to sign an online set of principles being submitted by the Center for Democracy and Technology. The deadline is today.