As expected, blogs may be under attack by federal government
on March 4th, 2005 at 3:43 amThe combination of the McCain-Feingold regulations plus MIA Democrats has created a hole in the defense of the freedom of speech we all share in the blogsphere:
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.
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 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. (…more)
Now I would like to believe that all Democrats out there do not side with this decision, so I will not make that general assumption here since the implications of such a ruling could affect all of us.
When it comes to our “freedom of speech” in this country, I say “all hands on deck” for this battle!
