DISCLOSE Act: Bloggers Beware

There are more links at the link below. Violating free speech and now ready to regulate the net? Anyone that uses the net, needs to note this goes a lot further than just blogging.

clipped from www.stumbleupon.com I actually ran across this story about the DISCLOSE Act on Hot Air.  Last week, a congressional hearing exposed an effort to give another agency—the Federal Election Commission—unprecedented power to regulate political speech online. At a House Administration Committee hearing last Tuesday, Patton Boggs attorney William McGinley explained that the sloppy statutory language in the “DISCLOSE Act” would extend the FEC’s control over broadcast communications to all “covered communications,” including the blogosphere. I decided to dig a little deeper and discovered it was very difficult to find information on this topic.  The few stories I did find revealed some very scary stuff.  Reason.com has a very good article on this subject.  The following is an excerpt from the article.  Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. Benjamin Franklin, 1722

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clipped from online.wsj.com A Free Speech Landmark Freedom has had its best week in many years. On Tuesday, Massachusetts put a Senate check on a reckless Congress, and yesterday the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision supporting free political speech by overturning some of Congress's more intrusive limits on election spending. That was a shock and awe moment at the Court, as it also should have been to a Washington press corps that has too often been a cheerleader for campaign-spending limits. Mr. Stewart was telling a truth already familiar to campaign-finance lawyers and the speech police at the Federal Election Commission. Former FEC Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky recalled yesterday that in 2004 the agency investigated whether a book written by George Soros critical of George W. Bush violated campaign laws. Liberals as much as conservatives should worry about laws that allow such investigations.

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