THE FEC AND ME

I must admit I didn’t pay too much attention to the FEC ruling this week exempting the internet from campaign finance laws. Kind of sad, considering what I write about on the internet, but oh, well.

Today I see the New York Times has small, albeit, blame packed and shrill editorial up about it. Here’s the whole thing:

“The Watchdog Awakes

The Federal Election Commission finally did the right thing in ruling that the Internet must not be used as a conduit for unregulated salvos of big-money political advertising. Scolded by a federal judge, the commission reversed its earlier rule that threatened to turn the Web into a giant trough for the six- and seven-figure donations from corporations, unions and fat-cat influence shoppers that Congress banned in the campaign reforms of 2002.

The F.E.C. ruling against such "soft money" corruption is welcome as well for its ringing endorsement of the free-speech rights of political bloggers, who had been concerned that they would be unfairly hobbled by any campaign controls on the Web. To the contrary, bloggers have now been assured of the same wide latitude to opine free of government control as newspapers enjoy, so long as they are not paid by a political campaign.

The commission's action is timely for effectively skewering a brazen attempt in the House this week to make the Internet a soft money cornucopia beyond the reach of campaign law. The measure was peddled in the name of protecting bloggers' free speech, but that veil has been shredded by the F.E.C.'s rule. House Republican leaders wisely pulled the measure from the agenda rather than laying bare the political greed of trying to make the Web a supermarket for influence peddling.”

Typical Times, they just hate the idea of “soft money” because it robs them of the monoply they have in politacl discourse and of course, everything bad is the fault of the right, Republicans and the GOP.

Seeing how much the Times loved the ruling, I decided it must stink somehow. So I Googled it and found an article from USA Today. Here’s some of what it says:

“Individual online political activity will be protected from FEC restriction regardless of whether the individual acts alone or as part of a group, and regardless of whether the individual acts in coordination with a candidate or acts independently," said Commission Chairman Michael E. Toner.

The 2002 campaign finance law requires that ads for or against federal candidates be paid for with money regulated by the law, which limits contributions by individuals to $2,000 and bans union and corporation donations.

In its initial interpretation of the law in 2002, the FEC said no political activity on the Internet was covered. But a federal court judge ruled in 2004 that the commission had to craft a new rule that at the very least covered paid political advertising on the Internet.

The ruling, and the commission's decision not to appeal it, sparked fears among some Internet users that the panel might adopt broader restrictions. But Toner said the new rule gives a "categorical and unqualified" exemption to all individual and group political activity on the Internet, except for paid advertising.”

Here’s what I get out of this: Individuals online can do and say anything they want, even if they are working in conjunction with a campaign. The only regulated thing is paid advertisements. What if someone Like Michelle Malkin, who has to pay for a lot of bandwidth use, gets donations from the RNC or Richard Scaife? Don’t you think the lefties will file suit claiming Scaife is just financing his ads by paying for Michelle to attack Hilary Kerry? You can count on it – this fight has just started.