This should piss everyone off....

As the Federal Election Commission gears up to review whether parts of the federal campaign finance law should apply to the Internet, some CNET News.com readers express concern that bloggers' free-speech rights could be at stake.

Bradley Smith, an FEC commissioner, said in a recent interview that bloggers may potentially find themselves fined if they improperly link to political campaign sites or forward a candidate's press release to a mailing list.

Smith is one of the six commissioners at the FEC, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet, a move that raises troubling First Amendment questions, some News.com readers said.
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Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But they couldn't get the three Democrats to go along with them.

Read for yourself:
http://news.com.com/The+coming+crackdown+on+blogging+-+page+2/2008-1028_3-5597079-2.html?tag=st.num
http://news.com.com/Will+campaign+finance+law+stifle+blogs/2100-1028_3-5600208.html?tag=nefd.top

Other links of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_mccain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Feingold
http://redstate.org/print/2005/3/4/131035/4512
http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/3/4/112822/2777#readmore
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#009753
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050304/D88K596O0.html

The judge that overturned the law exempting the internet from campaign finance law:
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/kotelly-bio.html (*Note, she was appointed by Bill Clinton)


What freaks me out most about this is that I cannot find in 20 minutes a Liberal blog that mentions anything about this. You think they'd be up in arms about the taking away of their free speech, since now they'd have to pay for every link they post back to Howard Dean's web site. This should not be a partisan issue, there should be people from all walks of life and from all sides of the big-ass fence that is America.

I sent an email to the FEC and requested it be forwarded to Bradley Smith. I'll let you know if I get a reply.