Bloggers Organize to Fight Government Regulation
Posted on June 28, 2005
Bloggers are organizing in an attempt to keep the Federal Election Commission from extending campaign finance rules to blogs. DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas has been active in trying to keep blogs from being regulated. Markos Moulitsas is the treasurer of BlogPac, an online political action committee formed last year by bloggers. An Associated Press article about the bloggers' fight against regulation included some comments from Markos:
"I like to think of myself as just a guy with a blog, but it's clear that 'just a guy with a blog' is different today than it was when I started three years ago," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of the Web log www.DailyKos.com. "One sign of having arrived is when government regulators start wanting to poke their fingers into what you do."The AP article says that the Federal Election Commission will make a decision this summer about whether blogs will have to comply with campaign finance rules.Moulitsas testified today at a hearing on a Federal Election Commission proposal that would extend some campaign finance rules to the Internet, including bloggers. He urged the FEC to take a hands-off approach.
"Anybody can participate. Anybody can have a voice. And any regulation that potentially chills that participation, I think, is a net detriment to the medium," Moulitsas said.
Acknowledging the Internet's growth, a federal judge last year ordered the FEC to extend some of the nation's campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on the Web.The threat of potential regulation comes despite a statement from Senators McCain and Feingold in March that said blogs are safe from potential Internet regulation by the FEC. In a statement the Senators said, "There is simply no reason -- none -- to think that the FEC should or intends to regulate blogs or other Internet communications by private citizens. Suggestions to the contrary are simply the latest attempt by opponents of reform to whip up baseless fears." McCain and Feingold are the two Senators the campaign finance law is named after -- the McCain-Feingold law.Bloggers fear that will mean new, unique limits on their activities, even though several of the commission's six members have indicated they have no desire to go beyond what the judge has ordered them to do.
The FEC plans this summer to decide how far to go. Bloggers view whatever happens at the commission as just the first step in their quest to remain free of government oversight.