U.S. government to regulate political blogs?

By Robert Niles. Posted: 2005-03-03

Websites are buzzing over a report that the U.S. Federal Election Commission might restrict the ability of some bloggers to link to or republish information from political campaigns.

In an interview with CNET News.com, FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith warned that the commission might rule that links to campaign websites reconstitute a financial contribution to those campaigns. Smith was responding to a federal appellate court ruling last year overturning the FEC's decision to exempt the Internet from a 2002 U.S. Campaign finance reform law.

"It's going to be a battle," Smith told CNET News.com, "and if nobody in Congress is willing to stand up and say, 'Keep your hands off of this, and we'll change the statute to make it clear,' then I think grassroots Internet activity is in danger."

Comments:

From Digital Camera Reviews on March 6, 2005 at 5:15 PM

I don't see how linking to a website could ever be construed as a charitable donation or a sponsor ship of a campaign. I think the general public is educated enough to take all information its given on the net and digest it without having our information goverened again by big brother.