OnLine Freedom of Speech Act - Stay Positive, We're Winning
By Brad Smith Posted in User Blogs — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
So H.R. 1606, the On Line Freedom of Speech Act, has again been delayed. Naturally, some folks are angry, and some are depressed. I'm here with the good news...
below the fold.The good news is this. The speech regulators are on the defensive. They've been able to hold this bill off only with a series of half-truths and lies, and their hypocrisy is being steadily exposed. Last fall, they argued that H.R. 1606 was awful because it deregulated everything. This winter, they're arguing that H.R. 1606 is awful because it leaves too much regulated. (The fact is, it does not leave the internet completely unregulated, but it does provide broad protection that their "alternative," H.R. 4900, does not). In the fall, they argued it was wrong and unfair to bring H.R. 1606 to the floor without Committee mark-up; now they argue it is wrong and unfair not to bring H.R. 4900 to the floor without Committee markup. Washington is a cynical place, but with each such maneuver, their credibility slowly shreds. And in the long run, that matters.
Second, we're not dead yet. We want to win, to be sure. Be at least we are fighting on our battlefield. This is an issue on which popular opinion is against them. A Rasmussen Poll commissioned last month by the Center for Competitive Politics (sorry, the Center hasn't posted the results on the web, but did issue a press release) found that, by better than a 3 to 1 margin, Americans think internet politics and commentary should remain unregulated. [Note: CCP does not take positions on legislation - it is a research group; I am "Senior Advisor" to CCP but am speaking here for myself]. This is a slowly unfolding PR disaster for the speech regulators, and the longer it simmers, the worse it gets for them - if the pressure is kept up.
And that leads to my third point: H.R. 4900, the CDT alternative, is a better bill (from the freedom point of view) than what the reformers trotted out as an "alternative" last fall. And remember, they don't really want to trot out anything. Every concession they make is a small win. H.R. 4900 is not as good as H.R. 1606. It has some nice little ornaments that H.R. 1606 does not seek to address, and if the reformers were honest about wanting to protect the net they would offer those pro-freedom amendments to 1606 and then vote for the whole bill. But its core provisions clearly do not provide the security to internet activities that 1606 does. Nevertheless, if 4900 is what we end up with, recognize that it is better than what the reformers expected to get when they won their court decision requiring the FEC to regulate the web.
We should also thank House Rules Chairman Vern Ehlers and his predecessor, Bob Ney, and their staffs for their support and hard work. Keep it up. Meanwhile, we need to keep up the pressure. One of the keys to the speech regulators' success over the years - which, frankly, was on display again yesterday - is that they are relentless. They never quit, ever. We can admire that trait, and emulate it, even if we avoid the half-truths, untruths, and seedy hypocrisy they employ.
So let's stay fired up and engaged, and let's be encouraged, not discouraged, by events so far. We're winning. We just haven't won yet.
From today's issue of the Hill:
The bloggers of Daily Kos, RedState and other online forums argue that the Allen-Bass alternative, which would provide targeted exceptions from the law for individuals and some websites, would force them to register as political committees.Allen did not dispute that possibility. He noted that his bill would allow websites unrestricted operations as long as their annual expenditures did not exceed $10,000.
"They might well have to file," Allen said of blogs as large as Daily Kos, "but that's the point. If the Internet becomes more important, the types of financial abuses that occurred within the campaign-finance system in general" are more prone to occurring.
Uh huh.
Let me note two things here. 1) Because no one understands this issue terribly well, it is shaping up as a partisan vote when it should be bipartisan. 2) It would have been demoralizing for the new leadership of the House to lose a vote on the rule for HR 1606.
No one in the House really understands what this bill is about and it gets lost in an obfuscatory discussion about campaign finance and ethics. That the vote got delayed provides an opportunity to educate Members and staff about the dangers of Bass-Allen.
That the CDT bill is better than that Shays-Meehan alternative from the fall is irrelevant, so long as the FEC regs next week are more restrictive than the CDT's. Because if that's the case, you think that the "reformers" are still going to push for the CDT proposal?
AlGore is still in government. After all, he invented the internet and he would understand all the details and be able to educate those less knowledgeable
When pigs fly! (Flo, Mels Diner)
Has Bass-Allen even been introduced in the Senate?
. . . and I'll say it again. Gaah. And I'll defend to the death my Constitutional right to be very irritated.