I did not receive an email like this today:
Greetings Mr. Winkler,The Federal Election Commission would like to inform you of an observed non-compliance with FEC election laws concerning the publication of works regarding candidates for federal office.
Your weblog has been selected by an automated system to be evaluated by an agent selected for this purpose. A copy of selected portions of your site has been cached by the FEC system and will be presented to the court upon any findings of non-compliance by the FEC agent.
You will receive additional correspondence from the FEC regarding this matter via registered mail. Please provide any additional requested information about the content of your site, the location of your server, and the visitor logs to the FEC agent upon request.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Scary?
I did make up the whole thing (as you might notice in my prefix to the letter) but wouldn’t that totally freak you out?
Well, guess what? It might not be as unreal as you think. The government is looking to legislate blogs. And it’s not all good.
If you’re not into reading the links in the previous paragraph, here’s the gist: Republican Jeb Hensarling of Texas sponsored a bill that would add words to the federal election laws that would exclude the internet from restrictions imposed on newspapers, TV, and other media regarding promoting candidates. The actual text change reads, “Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.”
The vote went to the floor looking for a 2/3 approval, and didn’t get it. Why? Mostly because Democrats voted against it. I can’t figure that one out.
Anyway, as the law stands, if you’re writing a political blog, it seems you are subject to the laws overseen by the Federal Election Commision. Look out for fines!
Is it just a short step from regulating your free speech about/for/against political candidates to regulating your speech about, well, anything?
I have the thought that it’s going to be too difficult to police, and it will be such a clear violation of constitutional rights that anyone that does stand up to it would have it thrown out. But am I wrong? Does this thing have teeth? Or does merely talking about it give it the teeth that it needs to start biting us all?
