"Elihu Root argued that we had to prevent the great accumulations of wealth from taking over politics... [describes actual trends]... Therefore we are saying if you are a big powerful cooperation, we are going to give you a press exemption for your Internet activity, at least if you are a press operation. And as we work down the line we are not going to give you that exemption. As a result you are going to be stifling the activity of the most grassroots, casual type of political action, rather than that of the big press corporation. It's particularly odd that we would do this in an era in which most of the mainstream press is owned by large corporations."

Per A.L.'s question, see also this discussion:

"What's interesting is that a group blog, if it doesn't have the press exemption, seems to more clearly fall into the statutory definition of "political committee," which is a group of people who are engaged is making expenditures and contributions to political campaigns. And so if you have a group of people blogging, I think it raises even further the possibilities that they could be deemed to be a political committee and then everything they do would be subject to some level of regulation."

Hmmm. Let's think about this. Is the dividing line raising money for a campaign? If so, Kos would have been be regulated. Is it working on a political campaign as staff? That would widen things still further, but probably exempt the Soros-funded Media Matters. Unless having professional staff is a criterion. If so, what is professional? Paid? Does a tipjar count, or only steady salaries? What if someone gives you $2000 every month, without a contract, via your tip jar? Or is the key trait of a "political committee" just group membership? That would sure get a lot of us - and what if the group isn't of one mind re: whom it supports?

I'm not 100% averse to regulation if conducted under narrow circumstances. Blogs can be integral parts of all aspects of a political campaign, and if you're going to have election finance laws (an arguable proposition), they need to be applied fairly. But I'm not seeing a lot of clarity here. More to the point, I'm not seeing evidence of the right questions being asked. Including the double-loop question "if it's so hard to make consistent, accurate distinctions, could we just be barking up the wrong tree on this one?"

Let me make a quiet bet, though: NONE of the FEC folks charged with regulating blogs in the political process have actually run one. This is par for the course in many regulatory environments.

Back to the interview:

"SCHULZ: Let's say there is a blog that is written and hosted offshore, perhaps by a non-resident U.S. citizen, or somebody living here but vacationing in, say, Canada, and they are writing about politics or encouraging people to vote for a candidate. Would that constitute a potential problem if it is financed in a way that somehow violated McCain-Feingold? More importantly, if so, how would that even be enforceable?

SMITH: Well, I think it would. For example, let's suppose we determine that they were violating the law, that the activity, for example, made them a "political committee." Then U.S. citizens who gave them money would have to be careful about how much they gave. That might be one way in which we could enforce it, by looking at the people who are still in the United States. Otherwise on the enforcement side, you are into questions of international law and things like that and I may not be totally equipped to answer.

But I think what this demonstrates, again, is that if you have money you can get around the exemption. You can go set up offshore, but your average person doesn't want to have to go set up offshore. Speech will have gone from being a real cheap thing you can do at home on a PC, with software that is readily available and easy to use to something that seems much more complex. Again this seems to be turning the purpose of the rule on its head."

In the interim, bloggers have banded together from the left and right to oppose regulation of the blogosphere via campaign finance laws. On June 3, 2005, the Republican National Committee also came out against the idea, and their full submission [PDF format] is well argued. (couldn't find anyhing at democrats.org - can anyone fill me on on the Dems?).

Since the USA tends to be rather freer than other Western countries with respect to free speech rights, the issue is deserving of interest from bloggers in all countries.