Bulldozing Hyde Park

So if I drag a box into downtown Minneapolis with the aim of standing up, speaking out, and convincing people to vote my way, will the FEC send a team of accountants and lawyers to monitor the speech?

There's not much I can add to Ed's evisceration of the Federal Election Commission's absurd proposal to regulate political speech on the internet per the McCain/Feingold law.

From Ed's open letter to Congress:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

We may debate about the effect of unregulated cash on our electoral system, but if this new FEC effort comes to pass, the only people debating will be the corporate-owned media and the politicians. The rest of us will have been effectively bound and gagged, unable to contribute in any way thanks to the efforts of those who fear their own constituents. You can be assured that none of us in the blogosphere will fail to recognize those who do not act to defend our rights to free and unfettered political speech, and regardless of political party, none of us will rest until those voices of repression are stripped of office by the voters they hold in such low regard.

When McCain/Feingold was first proposed, "blog" still meant something that happened after cheap beer and gas-station burritos. It was aimed at the "grass-roots" media of its day - groups not part of the media that produced their own commercials, like the NRA and AARP among many others. There was still a yawning gap separating personal opinion and speech that could actually affect elections.

Things have changed.

Question: since blogs are essentially personal, written "speech", which may or may not draw an audience depending on the merit of the material and standards of the audience, someone please tell me what separates McCain/Feingold regulations on blogs and, by extension, on someone dragging a soapbox (and a city demonstration permit) onto the corner of Hennepin and Seventh, standing up and giving a political speech?

Or of any group of demonstrators, of any political leaning?

This is what the right was warning about, years ago, with "Campaign Finance Reform"; the FEC seems to be acting to preserve the major media monopoly on the dissemination of political thought (via their exemption from McCain/Feingold).

Posted by Mitch at March 4, 2005 06:04 PM | TrackBack