FEC Commissioner warns of coming blogging crackdown [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[I'd strongly encourage you to read the entire Q&A... --Declan]



http://news.com.com/2008-1028_3-5597079.html

The coming crackdown on blogging
March 3, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh

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.

Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the 
Internet-related sections. But because they couldn't get the three 
Democrats to go along with them, what Smith describes as a "bizarre" 
regulatory process now is under way.

[...remainder of Q&A snipped...]
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