I received a letter from the Online Coalition for Free Speech today. It seems the Shays-Meehan group, which brought us the BCRA of 2002 have introduced a new bill into the house that would supposedly protect our right of free speech better than HR 1606 - The Online Freedom of Speech Act.

Don’t be misled by this attempt to derail the efforts of Congressman Jeb Hensarling and all of us who are fighting desparately to protect our free speech on the internet. Read:

“Right now - there are TWO bills in Congress that will affect bloggers - one good, one bad. The bill that deserves our support is HR 1606 - The Online Freedom of Speech Act.

The other bill - HR 4194 - is a substitute offered by those most interested in regulating the Internet. Its supporters are engaged in an aggressive campaign to pass this legislation in Congress, (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

I received the following from a staffer for Republican Congressman Chris Cannon, of Utah’s 3rd Congressional district, via my contact page. I wanted to share with you the remarks which the Congressman made on the floor of the House today.

“Rep. Chris Cannon Statement on HR 1606

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 1606, legislation that will exempt blogs, e-mail and other online speech from campaign finance laws.

When Congress passed campaign finance reform in 2002, the legislation did not identify political speech over the Internet as a target of the new regulations. The proponents of the law argued its intent was to restrict money not speech. But in April a federal judge sided with campaign finance reform zealots and ruled the FEC cannot completely exempt online speech from the requirements of the Campaign Finance Reform law.

I’m not here to revisit (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

From an article posted at Red State, and contributed by Congressman Jeb Hensarling:

“For those of you who are interested in tomorrow’s vote on the Online Freedom of Speech Act (H.R. 1606), I wanted to make you aware of the following letter I just sent, with Representative Albert Wynn (D-MD), to each of our colleagues in support of the bill. Since the bill is being considered “under suspension of the rules,” it needs to garner more than a majority of votes (two-thirds of the Members present and voting). So make your support for H.R. 1606 both loud and vocal!

Tomorrow the House will consider H.R. 1606, the online Freedom of Speech Act, which is identical to S. 678 introduced by Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid. This bill will protect citizen journalists, known as bloggers, from the heavy hand of federal regulation.

(Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Our thanks to Powerline for the heads up on this story.

Scott Johnson of Powerline, LaShawn Barber of LaShawn Barber’s Corner, and Mark Tapscott of Tapscott’s Copy Desk spoke as a blog panel for the National Conservative Student Conference for College Students in Wasington, DC. yesterday. The accounts of the program can be found by reading, A Fine Time at Young America’s Foundation Panel on Blogs, and from The Political Teen, Scott Johnson, La Shawn Barber, and Mark Tapscott Speak at YAF Conference, complete with video of their speeches.

What we find remarkable in this story, is that along with a fantastic conference, comes a wealth of information, sources, and organizations for young conservatives.

The Young America’s Foundation is an organization founded to promote former President Ronald Reagan’s vision of conservatism. The organization has (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

If you have not yet done so, please visit the Online Coalition right now to read and endorse their comment concerning FEC regulation of internet blogging.

The window to submit a comment to the FEC closes on Friday, June 3rd, 2005 — it’s not too late to submit your own comment. Simply send an e-mail to internet@fec.gov and be sure to include your name and mailing address. If you do not feel comfortable providing the FEC with personal data, send your comment to info@onlinecoalition.com and they will submit it for you anonymously.

Once the public comment period closes, the FEC will deliberate for a few weeks and then hold a public hearing on either June 28th or June 29th in Washington, DC. Both Mike Krempasky (a Republican) and Michael Bassik (a Democrat) from Online Coalition have requested the opportunity to testify at those hearings.

After the public hearings, the FEC will deliberate for a few weeks until they produce a final version of the rules and vote to enact them. Out of the six-member bipartisan Commission, they need four votes to do anything.

Don’t forget to visit the Online Coalition today to read and endorse their comment.

Time is running our for public comment to the FEC in their proposed rulemaking regarding the internet. The deadline is June 3, 2005.

If you are a blogger, blog reader, or a friend to blogs, you should make your opinion known to the FEC.

You may sign on to the 11 Principles for Online Freedom already written up with the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Institute for Politics, Technology, and The Internet. The address for their sign-up is Center for Democracy and Technology.

If you would like to write your own comments, you can find help and instruction from Red State.org, here, or from DailyKos.com, here.

Please visit the The Online Coalition and help them to educate the FEC.

Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters Blog has a story entitled, Singapore Shuts Down A Critical Blogger about a Blogger being shutdown by his government for criticizing one of their agencies. The downed site, along with the apology to the agency can be found here.

Captain Ed’s response is the following:

“Both Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have taken a look at Chen’s battle with Singapore’s elite. Chen’s surrender is certainly understandable, but unfortunate. Less understandable is the acquiescence of traditional media outlets in paying these judgements, as the article implies, and their silence to this point about the practice of Singapore’s leaders. Rather than comply with these blatant attempts to stifle free speech, the larger outlets should simply stop reporting from Singapore and give better coverage to the government’s opposition movements from bases outside Singapore.

Sometimes I wonder if (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Red State has a story about the recently proposed legislation to block the FEC from regulating online political speech. Their article entitled, Online Freedom of Speech Act Introduced in House contains the text of Congressman Jeb Hensarling’s letter to his colleagues. Here is the letter:

“Dear Colleague:

When Congress passed campaign finance reform in 2002, the legislation did not identify the Internet as a target of regulation, and rightly so. The explosion of new technology has done much to democratize our politics, encourage grassroots political involvement, and act as a tremendous catalyst for civic engagement across our country. With the emergence of blogs, the Internet truly puts the power in the hands of the people.

Unfortunately, a federal judge has ruled that the FEC’s previous broad exemption of the Internet was impermissible absent clear direction from Congress. Within (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Captain Ed, of Captain’s Quarters Blog wrote yesterday, Bloggers Have Been Heard, in which he gives Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) praise for introducing a bill that would exempt “Internet communications from FEC regulation altogether:”

“Paragraph 22 of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: “Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.”

We add our thanks to Senator Reid for his action, and hope the bill is passed and signed into law. We would further suggest, that the BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act - McCain-Feingold) of 2002 be repealed altogether in light of how it was brought into being, and the corruption behind it, as we posted here, yesterday.

Please read Captain Ed’s entire post, linked above, and we add our thanks to him, for helping lead the charge against FEC regulation of Blogs.

Bloggers and others have formed an “Online Coalition” and written a letter to the FEC concerning the regulation of bloggers and websites. You can sign on here. If you don’t do anything else, at least read the letter, and stay informed.

Our thanks to Instapundit for pointing to the letter above.

In the aftermath of the “blogger firestorm” generated by FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith last week, there are now some critical assessments concerning this issue. Our thanks to Instapundit, for pointing to the latter two writers.

Three well known personalities have written post-appraisals concerning whether or not there could, or should be blogger regulation by the FEC.

Hugh Hewitt, syndicated radio talk show host, and Professor of Constitutional Law at Chapman University Law School says,

“I have been teaching the First Amendment for a decade, and it isn’t going to happen because it would be patently and obviously unconstitutional to classify the content of a political blog –which is essentially a cyber-newspaper– as within the purview of the FEC.”

His full statement entitled, Lions, and tigers and bears, oh my!, can be read here.

Richard Hasen, is a professor specializing in election law at (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

The widespread story of yesterday concerning the FEC regulation of blogs, and even e-mail that has political references has been substantiated.

The Washington Times in an op-ed piece today entitled Excesses in McCain-Feingold, certainly lends weight to the accuracy of the story. An excerpt on their take on the subject is quoted here:

“But last September U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the decision, arguing that the “commission’s exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines” the law’s purpose. Interpreting this, Mr. Smith told CNET News that “any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum.” This includes, but is not limited to, blogs and other sources of political news and opinion that might link to a candidate’s Web page. This leaves bloggers and online news sources in a state of regulatory limbo. “Would a link to a candidate’s (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Far more than rumors, Cnet News, has an article entitled The coming crackdown on blogging, which will devastate political opinion on blogger websites.

This detriment to the rights of citizens to express their opinions, is one of the many consequences of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002. It is as well, an assault on the First Amendment to the Constitution and the freedom of speech. Captain’s Quarters has a great letter that should be copied and pasted into an E-Mail to both of your Senators from your home state. You may do so with the Captain’s permission, leaving out his introduction and add your own, as well as changing the names. Townhall has a page where you can get the e-mail address, phone numbers, fax numbers, etc. of your Senators and Congressmen.

The PCB posted here, concerning the importance of (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

The question on everyone’s mind these days is, “Are bloggers real journalists?”. Most bloggers don’t have credentials from journalist schools per se, they are simply people with something to say. Some have college degrees, some don’t. But that doesn’t really speak to the heart of the matter. Is someone who blogs, a real journalist?

In case you missed it yesterday afternoon, Lawrence Kudlow, host of CNBC’s “Kudlow and Company” as well as Kudlow’s Money Politic$’s Blog, had as his guest two of the most well known bloggers on the internet. Hugh Hewitt, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, and author of Blog:. along with Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog. The interview was centered around the subject of “are bloggers journalists?”. Radio Blogger has a transcript here entitled Blog shield boundaries. Below is an excerpt of that transcript pulled right out of the (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

It has often been said that every journey in life begins with a first step. This is the first step down a path that has long been a vision of the PCB, to have a means to communicate thoughts and viewpoints without having to invest huge amounts of money in a newspaper, radio station, or television. Through the means of the blog, anyone who has the ability to write down what they think about any subject, gets published for the entire world to read.

First of all, we want to thank the good people at The Powerline Blog, whom Rush Limbaugh, had mentioned on his radio show. Shortly after that first visit to Powerline’s website, the story about Dan Rather and Rathergate was just beginning to break. The posting on Powerline was such intense reading during that short time period that it was an enticing “must” (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)