The Federal election Commission is going to be passing some critical judgments soon about whether and how to “regulate” political activity on the internet, including the major political blogs probably.

We’ll be following the evolution of this story.

As I’ve said before, the power to regulate is tantamount ot the power to prohibit.

I’ve also said, though, that due to the internet, I personally feel that my freedom of speech has been increased. I’d hate to have to retract that statement, due to limitations on my speech imposed by the FEC.

It’s hard to imagine that I might be affected by any FEC decisions, but it’s always possible I guess.

Daily Kos :: FEC Attack on Internet-Based Political Advocacy?: “FEC Attack on Internet-Based Political Advocacy?
by Armando
Thu Mar 3rd, 2005 at 08:00:38 PST

atrios draws our attention to what could be a very worrisome development - an apparent attempt to regulate Internet political advocacy in such a way that would kill it. From an interview with FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith (who seems to be a good guy on this issue):

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.

. . . 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.’Do we give bloggers the press exemption? 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? . . . 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. . . . It’s still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly.”