March 3, 2005

FEC Democrats Aiming to Muzzle Blogs

Will the Federal Election Commission use "campaign finance reform" to clamp down on political blogging? This CNET story raises the possibility, in a chilling report that notes that the FEC is trying to determine the value of a hyperlink. Memo to the FCC: there are millions of blogs. And blogs can be created in mere seconds. How are you gonna police that? And isn't there a First Amendment right for John Q. Citizen to speak his mind, even via a blog, and to point his readers to political websites via a hyperlink?

Memo to the FEC: HobbsOnline is an online publication akin to a magazine about politics, policy, culture and economics. It is journalism. I have a First Amendment right to write it, publish it and distribute it. And you don't have a constitutional right to stop me from doing it. And if I chose, in the midst of my online political commentating, to urge my readers to donate money to a political candidate, that is not me evading the Campaign Finance Reform law - it is me excercising my fundamental right as an American to speak my mind and support the candidates of my choice.

If you, FEC, try to clamp down on that, what's next? Putting a dollar value on my "contribution" to a candidate by telling a friend at a backyard barbecue that I think they ought to support and vote for that candidate? Absurd.

Back off.