In the
Chicago Tribune:
Some supporters of campaign finance laws say Smith, a Republican, is painting an unrealistically harsh portrait of what the FEC might do and is motivated by a dislike for campaign regulation of any kind.
"This is one more shot at trying to disrupt the campaign finance laws by creating a false firestorm in the online community," said Fred Wertheimer, president of the campaign reform group Democracy 21.
Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub wrote a rebuttal for CNET, saying the agency has no intention of shutting down online political activity. "First of all, we're not the speech police," she wrote. "There's got to be money involved, or it's out of our jurisdiction." [...]
Many say bloggers are overreacting to the threat of regulation. Any FEC rules are likely to be narrow, campaign finance reform groups say, and will most likely affect corporate and union use of the Internet during an election.
If Wientraub is right, and they're only concerned when money exchanges hands, then that's one thing. But a lot of the discussion on the issue has been based on the monetary value of links and endorsements and that sort of thing. I think Weintraub and people like Wertheimer are downplaying a very real threat.
For example, that last line is key: "Any FEC rules are likely to be narrow, campaign finance reform groups say, and will most likely affect corporate and union use of the Internet during an election."
Well, Daily Kos is a wholly owned part of Kos Media, LLC. This site is incorporated. It is a corporation. Hence, an such FEC rules would definitely affect this site.
And as more bloggers turn pro, or fear getting sued for libel and incorporate to protect their personal assets, the more blogs will fall under this "corporation" category. Not every blog is run by amateurs, and whether they are or not shouldn't have any bearing on their ability to excercise their First Amendment rights.
Remember, CFR was designed to combat the flow of Big Money in the political process. In the broadcast world, there's no way for the grassroots to combat the power of big money. Online, the netroots dominates, not Big Money.
The Reid Amendment is the solution -- exempt all Internet communications from FEC regulation.