Bloggers, chill out, says Democratic FEC commissioner [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/2010-1030_3-5602660.html

Bloggers, chill out already!
March 7, 2005, 10:53 AM PT
By Ellen Weintraub

Bloggers of America, chill.

Reports of a Federal Election Commission plot to "crack down" on 
blogging and e-mail are wildly exaggerated.

First of all, we're not the speech police. We don't tell private 
citizens what they can or cannot say, on the Internet or anywhere else. 
The FEC regulates campaign finance. There's got to be some money 
involved, or it's out of our jurisdiction.

Second, let's get the facts straight. Congress, in the Bipartisan 
Campaign Reform Act, limited how one can pay for communications that are 
coordinated with political campaigns, including any form of "general 
public political advertising."

The commission issued a regulation defining those communications to 
exempt anything transmitted over the Internet. A judge struck down that 
regulation as inconsistent with the law. So now we're under a judicial 
mandate to consider whether anything short of a blanket exemption that 
will do.

[...remainder snipped...]
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