The Senators behind the controversial federal campaign finance reform law have said Internet bloggers and publishers need not fear that the package will regulate them.
Not that John McCain (R-Arizona) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) could resist taking yet another shot at those who opposed their package, which critics denounced as a somewhat draconian violation of the First Amendment even after President Bush signed it and the Supreme Court upheld it.
"The latest misinformation from the antireform crowd,” McCain and Feingold said in a joint statement, “is the suggestion that our bill will require regulation of blogs and other Internet communications. This issue has nothing to with private citizens communicating on the Internet."
The issue arose earlier this week, when Federal Elections Commission member Bradley Smith suggested that McCain-Feingold could be applied to the so-called blogosphere and other online publications which include links to campaign Websites.
The FEC had originally exempted the Internet from McCain-Feingold, but federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned that FEC ruling, prompting Smith to say that overturning opened the way for regulating the online media.
"She says that any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum,” Smith had told CNET.com. “The problem with coordinated activity over the Internet is that it will strike, as a minimum, Internet reporting services. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals like CNET?"
McCain and Feingold, however, say not to worry. "There is simply no reason--none--to think that the FEC should or intends to regulate blogs or other Internet communications by private citizens," their statement said. "Suggestions to the contrary are simply the latest attempt by opponents of reform to whip up baseless fears."
