Not long ago, George W. Bush, in response to being spoofed on the Internet, said 'there ought to be limits to freedom.' Bush, oft ridiculed for his seemingly Quayle-esque gift of gab, made it clear that he does not support a fully free and open Internet.

The National Legal Policy Center, in a complaint filed with the Federal Elections Commission last week against Grassroots.com, made clear that it also does not fully support the idea of an Internet with information for its own sake.

Both Bush and the NLPC seem to be missing a major point: the Internet is the new home for free speech in this country, where people can - and should be able to - say things that other traditional media just do not allow. A closer look at both cases proves why.

In re: Grassroots.com, Inc., et al.

The United States Code, in Title 2, Section 431, prohibits corporations from providing 'contributions or expenditures' to political candidates. In October of last year, the non-profit Democracy Network (DNet), backed by the League of Women Voters and the Center for Governmental Studies, sought an Advisory Opinion from the FEC as to whether or not it was in violation of Sec. 431. The Commission ruled that the site and its content, as both planned and described, were legally permissible.

In February of this year, DNet was purchased by Grassroots.com. It openly admits to being a for-profit venture. The president of DNet, Tracy Westen (a professor at the USC Annenberg School, publisher of this site), became chairman of Grassroots.com after the merger. The site is backed by at least $30 million in venture capital, raised from sources like Knight-Ridder.

And that is what prompted the NLPC to action. The Center's complaint is based on the fact that DNet is no longer the independent, profit-free site the FEC smiled upon in October. It is now a subordinate part of a corporation with $30 million in the bank, one that actively intends to make a buck or two on the election. (There is also debate over whether or not Grassroots secretly consulted the FEC about post-merger propriety, the subject of a separate complaint). Of course, the NLPC has also been accused of having ulterior motives. It carries, fairly or not, a conservative label, because of its efforts to expose malfeasance in the Clinton Administration. The League of Women Voters, which is still actively involved with DNet, happens to exist on the other end of the spectrum, a conflict that was posited as soon as news of the complaint broke.

In this particular instance, though, motivation is not an issue. Whether or not the NLPC was looking out for the interests of fairness when lodging the complaint is not nearly as important as what the compliant may end up causing to happen. It is entirely conceivable that DNet will be prohibited from providing something as basic as unedited candidate policy statements and links to candidate homepages. In other words, the site may be forced to replace what comes directly from the horse's mouth with its own processed content.

If this doesn't sound like a problem, it should. The NLPC complaint is grounded in the idea that Grassroots.com drives traffic to candidates and gets their message out, which is admittedly a thing of value and thus a violation of ?431. However, the way DNet (which is really a separate entity from Grassroots, with different-looking pages run on different servers) provides that information is just that: information. A newspaper, surely a corporation, would never be challenged for violating ?431 if it gave a rundown of candidate positions and their headquarters phone numbers. What's the difference?

The Supreme Court of the United States has a history of treating various media differently. In Reno v. ACLU, No. 96-511, Justice Stevens wrote for the Court that '... the Internet is not as 'invasive' as radio or television.' Thus, reasoned the Court, it was subject to less regulation than those other media. The Internet, for the time being, gets to operate under substantially similar freedoms to those of newspapers. Obviously, there are significant differences; anyone who can figure out how to hyperlink printed text is likely to make a fortune. But the point is that if a paper can materially do the things that would otherwise be illegal under ?431, then a Web site should be able to do the same.

Spoofing Dubya

Massachusetts resident Zack Exley, presumably not a huge fan of Governor Bush, runs a parody site, GWBush.com. Governor Bush's lack of amusement at Exley's work prompted him to make the 'too much freedom' statement. It also prompted his people to file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission. The Commission's response? Something very like 'go away kid, you bother me.'

It held that the complaint was very low priority compared to the other things it has to do (like, the 2000 election), and so was dismissing the case. The case itself was closely watched not for the merits, per se, but rather in the hope that it would shed some light on whether or not personal Web pages that advocate for or against a candidate fall under the purview of the Federal Election Campaign Act. This is a question because in 1998 the Commission ruled that Web sites could be regulated as campaign expenditures. Rebecca Fairley Raney, writing in the New York Times, noted that a Webmaster who spent $1000 or more building a site advocating a political issue could be forced by the FEC to register as a Political Action Committee. Subsequent rulings have muddled the issue; hopes were that the Exley case may clarify the problem somewhat, which it unfortunately did not.

You really have to lack a sense of humor not to laugh at some of the stuff on Exley's site, like the bumper sticker that reads 'Don't blame Dubya ... He's a victim of Social Promotion.' Cute, though untrue (and as Salon documented yesterday, we as journalists aren't ones to talk). On the other hand, if I were George W., some of what the site has to say would honestly make me cry. Exley tends to get downright mean, which I think you have to agree with regardless of political bent.

The cruelty of GWBush.com aside, my point is this: there is no other outlet for what the site has to say. It is not possible in the year 2000 to say the things Zack Exley is saying, with as broad a reach in saying them as he has, anywhere but online. And better yet still, what he is saying is encouraging debate, making people take notice, and keeping the candidate on his toes. It's not like Bush is the only candidate getting a drubbing on the Web; do you think Al Gore is going to send a Christmas card to the owner of AllGore.com? Bush chose to make an issue of the site, which just makes him look bad. He'll garner more votes by looking and acting Internet-friendly.

Both Bush and NLPC miss the point: the Internet is the only medium left for people to share ideas freely and openly without insurmountable barriers to access. Their opposition to that ideal bodes ill for everyone who values the free exchange of ideas.