The Other Side of the FEC

Redstate indicated that the problem reported in The coming crackdown on blogging MAY not be as serious as we all thought.

Trevor Potter, a former attorney in the Reagan Justice Department and former Chairman of the FEC, issued a response tonight to Brad Smith.

Commissioner Smith's interview does a good job at providing misinformation on the subject of the Internet and the FEC, as it was obviously intended to......

After a Federal judge threw out these Smith-supported exclusions for paid advertising on the Internet, the FEC was ordered to open a rulemaking on the question of advertising on the Internet. The Commission has NOT yet even put out any options for consideration--when they do so there will be opportunity for lots of public comment. The Commission will have plenty of opportunity in the course of the rulemaking to distinguish between political candidate or party Internet expenditures (which should be subject to federal campaign finance law like any other expenditure they make, or which is coordinated with them), and completely unregulated activity by bloggers, Internet news services, and citizens acting on their own.

There is NO REASON AT ALL that this FEC rulemaking should attempt to regulate bloggers, Internet-based news entities, or average citizens sitting at their PCs, and I have great faith it will not.......

For more information on the history of FEC regulation and deregulation of the Internet, see my Chapter in the Brookings Institution's New Campaign Finance Sourcebook here at Chapter Nine.

Update:

See Michelle Malkin for further information