Bill to Treat Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated

Lawrence Person writes "The attempt to require political bloggers to register as lobbyists previously reported by Slashdot has been stripped out of the lobbying reform bill. The vote was 55 to 43 to defeat the provision. All 48 Republicans, as well as 7 Democrats, voted against requiring bloggers to register; all 43 votes in favor of keeping the registration provision were by Democrats."

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[ArcherB]

I could be wrong, but I think the target was talk radio and/or conservative sites that are advertiser funded like LittleGreenFootballs, but not MoveOn.org, which is funded by contributors (George Soros)

Re:It was about stopping astroturf not bloggers

[MrWGW]

Of course, then you run into a whole can of worms in the process of determining who was paid versus who wasn't. One can conceivably imagine the provision being used as an excuse for law enforcement (or worse) to rifle through bloggers' bank accounts to determine evidence of "illegal payment." This could cause all kinds of hassles, especially for bloggers who use their blog as a source of income and who might (as is often the case with self-employed workers) not follow proper proceedures for recording who paid them for what in terms of legal, legitimate advertising. Thus, it could be alleged that they had illegally accepted money for a political post on their blog without having registered as a lobbyist, and they could face jail time, et cetera. It is of course axiomatic that the ruling party of the moment could use this as a tool with which to quickly silence opposition.

No, it was about stopping bloggers

[Anonymous Coward]

The part you conveniently leave out is that payment wasn't defined as receipt of cash. It was defined as communicating to 500 or more readers. Dems didn't want any criticism.

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[rossifer]

It boils down to them not wanting unrestricted Internet criticism of incumbents. Essentially, Democrats are worried about 2008. The election of so many conservative Democrats, the so-called "Blue Dog" caucus, has split the party, and the more liberal leadership is worried about alienating their base.

Your speculation might have some merit if the typical blogger would have had to register under the act. As it turns out, however, the act would have only required bloggers who make and/or spend more than $25,000/year on a politics position blog to register. This article should be titled "Bill to Treat Astroturfing Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated".

The actual grass-roots bloggers (and whatever their criticism of whoever they wanted to criticize) were never in jeopardy. But the Republicans and some Democrats made sure that astroturfers aren't in jeopardy either. Most of the Democrats were on the ethical side on this one. Sadly, they couldn't get a majority today.

Ross (registered Republican, but not very proud of that association right now)

Re:Conspiracy theorize all you want

[Overly Critical Guy]

The ACLU was against the bill. Are the ACLU a group of Republicans?

The parent is NOT flamebait

[Travoltus]

The above poster is referring to that awful Fairness Doctrine that Democrats are trying to bring back, as well as this onerous new blogger law-that-almost-was. I have a long liberal posting history and I agree, the Republicans did good today. The Democrats really, really screwed up.

I've been saying this for quite a while... America does best with the Democrats steering America and a strong Republican minority slamming on the political antilock brakes when the Democrats start driving recklessly. Today is a good example of that.

Re:Good

[hey!]

Can anyone explain why there are _any_ limits on political speech?

Because there will always be de facto limits on speech whether or not there are de jure limits.

For example, no country at war is going to allow people to publish information about troop deployments. In such a situation it is important to define reasonable de jure limitations on speech, because in the heat of battle government will act to restrict speech, whether it is legally empowered to do so or not. Having reasonable limitations thought out in advance and enacted into law acts constrains those actions.

Another example is obscenity. The regulations on obscenity do not really prevent anybody who wants obscene materials from getting them. What they do is tell people who are up in arms about obscenity to go home: anybody who is receiving obscene materials is an adult or near adult seeking them out. The restriction on obscene material are a burden on producers and consumers, but on balance they ensure that such materials remain available.

These restrictions are like liberatarian antibodies. The immunize the body politic against severe censorship.

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[The Master Control P]

For once, the provision in question [loc.gov] was where it belonged: In the middle of a bill that helps expose lobbyists as lobbyists. See section 220-a-2, and the requirements before one must register: All of (Readership > 500, astroturfing for lobbying firm, paid at least $100,000 per year for it). The odds of a genuine blogger being impacted by this are between epsilon and zero.

So to answer your question, this was supposed to bring blogger-shills under the same requirements as other lobbying groups. Personally, I wish there had been a "Paid shills in question must prominently disclose that they are paid shills on the front page of their blog" clause.

Stupid

[Mark_MF-WN]

This goes beyond "stupid". This one goes well into the realm of free-speech issues. Campaign finance reform and lobbying are always gray areas as far as free-speech versus functioning-democracy goes, but on this the Democrats are totally in the wrong. The fact that 7 of them broke ranks is a rather clear sign of this, at a time when the Democrats should be consolidating their power and trying to show some unity.

Those who doubt that the Democrats are just a very slightly more socialist twist on the same shitty formulae as the Republicans need look no further than this kind of stunt.

Re:Not typical democrat behavior?

[Anonymous Coward]

While liberals only call for the assassination of elected officials they don't like.

Yeah, like Pat Robertson and Hugo Chavez.

Oh wait.

Members, employees, etc.

[mdsolar]

My Electric Coop keeps me informed through new letters included with my bill about legislative developments that affect rates and such. I'm a member of the coop so I guess that would be excluded.

My cable company tries to get me to write congress so they can take over the land line market. This might be included because I am a customer not a memeber.

My cell phone company has had some gripes too and again I'm a customer not a member.

Now, the solar power company I sell for has a definite agenda when it comes to net metering laws: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/solar-power-am way-way.html [blogspot.com]. I'm not an employee, I'm an associate. I might however initiate a company-wide announcement that makes it to most of the customers that supports the agenda to increase access to net metering. Am I retained? Maybe. Am I communicating with more that 500 people? Yes, sales are growing incredibly. Am I a lobbyist in the way the bill intended? Very hard to say but I'd guess yes.

I feel pretty good that this was removed from the bill just because it was so vauge that many many activities might come under its scope.

Then why is the ACLU against it?

[Zopilote]

This is not about getting rid of "astroturfing," but about letting the politicians do what they like without being held accountable by the citizenry.

First, I defy anyone to nail down a definition of "astroturfing" in a neutral non-political way. One man's astroturfing (probably the politician's) is another man's grassroots. When you are on the receiving end of it (as the politicians are) you don't like it. But when you are one of the outraged citizens who were alerted to something the politicians are about to do, and you take matters up with them, it is a genuine expression of concern.

People are too busy to read every bill that comes up-- come on, get real. So they subscribe to interest groups or go to blogs that share their interests and views, and have the time to analyze the things that go on in Washington. And the only way that these groups and blogs can devote that much time to this is by receiving funding in one form or another. It's not just corporations that provide funding: many groups are funded by the citizenry directly by subscription fees, membership dues, donations and the like. And it's not just conservative groups, but also liberal groups, that would be affected.

It should not surprise anyone that the politicians want to shut this down. But it's shameful that the vote was so split by party lines.

Here are some interesting paragraphs from the CNet article on the topic [com.com]:

"You have a First Amendment right to contact your congressperson and you have a First Amendment right to tell others to do so," said Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now they're saying you have to report to the federal government if you're going to engage in this First Amendment-protected activity."

The controversial requirement lies in Section 220 of the massive bill, which supporters of the legislation say is intended to curb the practice of lobbyists setting up "astroturf" groups. But in a conference call on Thursday, a broad range of groups including the ACLU, the Free Speech Coalition, the Traditional Values Coalition and National Right To Life said it would hurt their own groups' abilities to influence Congress and place unreasonable restrictions on Internet politicking.

Re:Conspiracy theorize all you want

[PriceIke]

> this is a way for corporations to sell their lies to the public without them knowing it

Usually, the public is smarter than that. [consumerist.com] But not necessarily when it comes to politics.

Re:Just some observations on Reality...

[MadAhab]

Actually you are wrong. Of course there are hundreds of regular conservative bloggers who aren't part of the money train, but the fact is that many prominent conservative blogs are funded from some part of the Republican money machine - not the RNC, of course, but via wealthy donors.

Remember Jeff Gannon aka James Guckert?

I've never heard of a single liberal blog that gets funded this way. Most liberal bloggers are pretty frank about how they pay their bills as well. Very, very few afford their creators enough dough to make a living off their blogs, but many manage to at least pay their server bills and maybe provide pocket change.

I know some people will cite Soros and MoveOn - but MoveOn is not a blog, it's a PAC. There are a lot more super-wealthy conservatives who have funded conservative causes for decades, e.g. the Coors. There are more of them than you can imagine. Wealthy liberals are more likely to fund new hospital wings or cancer research or schools in India or something.

Speech

[Teancum]

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.

I don't know what part of Congress shall make no law can't be understood by the U.S. Supreme Court, but I think the wording here is very clear. And for political speech, I would have to agree even more with your sentiment, there can't be any regulation of any kind in any way, even if it is for more noble aims. This is not yelling "fire" in a theater, to give a classic excuse to regulate speech in some situations.

If they want to regulate speech, these election campaign reformers need to first ammend the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, how often does the current U.S. Government (any one of the three branches) really care about what is written in this governing document? That the Constitution isn't being followed should hardly be surprising any more.