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...)

As we continue in our theme of individual liberty from last week where we discussed the commerce clause, we want to focus today on free speech.

There is no concept of freedom dearer to the hearts of the American people than that of free speech. The Constitution states in the first amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

For our purposes today the first right in the Bill of Rights following the establishment clause states:

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”

Today we want to focus on one particular encroachment on this all important right that has recently been passed by both House and Senate, (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

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...)