Posted on 05/19/2010 12:58:50 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
The same sloppy legislative writing that created so many unintended consequences in ObamaCare also plagues the DISCLOSE Act, the effort in Congress to tighten spending rules in the wake of the Citizens United decision — and that’s the generous take on the situation. Reason’s Bradley Smith and Jeff Patch warn that the perhaps-unintended consequences of legislative language will allow the FEC to regulate political speech online. The fact that media entities like the New York Times have specific exemptions built into the bill makes the intent, or lack thereof, rather murky:
Last week, a congressional hearing exposed an effort to give another agency—the Federal Election Commission—unprecedented power to regulate political speech online. At a House Administration Committee hearing last Tuesday, Patton Boggs attorney William McGinley explained that the sloppy statutory language in the “DISCLOSE Act” would extend the FEC’s control over broadcast communications to all “covered communications,” including the blogosphere.
The DISCLOSE Act’s purpose, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Chris Van Hollen and other “reformers,” is simply to require disclosure of corporate and union political speech after the Supreme Court’s January decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission held that the government could not ban political expenditures by companies, nonprofit groups, and labor unions.
The bill, however, would radically redefine how the FEC regulates political commentary. A section of the DISCLOSE Act would exempt traditional media outlets from coordination regulations, but the exemption does not include bloggers, only “a communication appearing in a news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication…”
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
tolcha Obambi’s snarky remark about technology last week was the camel sniffing around the tent.
Democrats = National Socialists (NAZIS)
I realize I’m stating the obvious here, but this is nothing short of EVIL, and FOUL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL CENSORSHIP!
So what are you gonna do about it? ( part snark and part serious).
Here in Michigan a republican legislator introduced a bill last week that would require certification to be considered a legitimate “journalist”.
Absolutely right!
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.”
That darnded negative constitution.
Didn't take long...........
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security”
The second amendment is meant to protect the first. If they pass this law,, all blogging should continue, DARING them to enforce it. Violence is a moral response to *anyone* who comes out to arrest a man, for merely writing his political thoughts and opinions.
that’s a good question. we could:
1. vote them out in november. but then again, as shown last time, you can stuff the boxes in 17 states and once you win you can shut down the fbi investigation against you.
2. protest. then again, 2.5m people were standing on the steps of congress last sept trying to stop the healthcare bill from passing... and they didn’t care. they pushed it through anyhow.
3. you could protest like david thoreau and not pay taxes, thereby defunding them... of course, they are already spending money they don’t have so that won’t work.
4. you could start a blog, as recommended by a congressional staffer... but then, considering the article, i’m fairly certain it’d have zero impact. on top of that, i’m fairly certain a blog would not carry the viewership as a nationwide broadcast
have any other ideas? (and obviously i’m holding back one solution)
What a shock, huh??!! Try to “regulate” those who actually tell the truth and report the news. Naturally there’s no need to regulate the “mainstream media.” It’s already a wing of the democrat party.
Nazis liked their country but feared the people. Democrats fear both.
Amendment 1 to ten are not compatible with communism and must be eliminated.
If they regulate blogging, it’s as bad as demanding guns be turned in. If they move, the blogging continues in utter defiance of the law. Then THEY either ignore it or try to enforce their new law.
If they come to enforce, (Concord, Boston,,) we do not seek or start any violence, we only demand they desist. If they try to arrest or enforce, we defend by any means.
I feel that is perfectly moral and linear. No man has a right to regulate what an individual writes about politics and spreads as widely as he can.
Find out how efficiently it may be violated, and do so with great enthusiasm and regularity.
Pick a box. Soap, ballot, jury, bullet.
But more than guns,, they fear sunshine and crowds. If they come to arrest a blogger, there should be a crowd of 5000 surrounding the blogger. They love to pick off low hanging fruit quietly. They will even arrest an illegal alien on the side of the road. But they won’t take on 10,000 in broad daylight.
We can use the same tactic.
They won’t dare. These tea parties have scared them bad.
20 bucks says the internet and FoxNews go way-way about October to “prevent any more of this kind of attack on America”....
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