Senate Bill Could Restrict Political Commentary
(9 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5)
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by Mike Zazaian January 18, 2007 - 2:21pm, 36 Comments
According to Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before Congress would make it illegal to communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters
without registering and reporting to the Senate on a quarterly basis. Due to the vague usage of the term communicate
in the proposed bill, these restrictions would impose the same legal and financial obligations as are currently required of large-scale lobbying organizations on any individual attempting to convey political ideas to a group of 500 or more through any medium. Bloggers, vloggers, and any other communicators who fall under these guidelines would face fines, or jail time of up to one year for knowingly and willingly fail[ing] to file or report
[prior to commenting on public policy].
Senator David Vitter (R-LA), who introduced the lobbying reform bill to congress, seems to have recoiled in the face of opposition to his initial offering. Shortly after proposing the aforementioned restrictions to congress, Vitter became a co-sponsor of Amendment 20, which would effectively remove Vitter’s contributions to Section 220. Amendment 20, introduced Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT), will be voted upon within the week.
The proposed bill frighteningly mirrors efforts by the Chinese government to require bloggers to use their official names when communicating with an online audience. According to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, the aim of the proposition is to exert greater control over bloggers who publish Irresponsible and untrue information
.
The Internet Society of China (ISC), which will be responsible for developing the proposed system, says that no proposals have yet been finalized.
Hopefully this doesn’t pass. I like the freedoms of the tubes and the internets.
DjDTM
Cool!
Dionyssios
interesting
Aristotelis
Interesting…
Myron
Cool!
Eleni
Nice
Nikodemos
Nice!
Angelo
Cool…
Orion
Nice
Crist
Nice
Leandros
Interesting…
Panayotis
Sorry
Carolos
Cool!
Apostolis
Interesting…
Aleksiu
Cool!
Elias
Interesting…
Titos
Interesting…
Gerasimos
interesting
Kyriakos
Nice…
Damianos
Bush and the Republicans will continue their assault on our Bill of Rights until we are no longer free. The Corporate giants that support these politicans, continue to do so because they are in effect running the country and bleeding the all of us of everything we own.
Jack
Sorry
Epaminondas
Cool? Nice? Interesting??
These people are talking about taking away the freedom of speech of ordinary people. Being able to disagree out loud with what our ‘leaders’ in Washington are doing is the biggest single way for us to keep them from ignoring us and doing whatever they want! To pass a law that
restricts our ability to communicate with each other (especially if done anonymously) is nothing but a stranglehold on our freedom of speech.
If this law should pass, every one posting to blogs or forums like this one would be in danger of going to jail. Period.
GAD
Sorry
Silvanos
I think the “Nice” “Interesting” “Cool” and “sorry” is a bot or something placing them. The names of those posters are all similar. I don’t know why on earth someone would do it but then again, it is unimportant.
Feszy
Well, if it passes, I’ll have to set up a blog here in Canada, where people can send me a message and I “report” on my communication with them.
after all, Canadians wouldn’t be affected by this US law, so I could publish as much as I wanted calling the US government a Fascist state engaged in a war on it’s citizens and they couldn’t touch me. >:)
Jaqui
This is suspicious, I wonder why some one would try to congest real opinions with filler comments by bots?
Loosing our Rights is a slow crawl towards Martial Law. We can not loose the ability to hold our government accountable for the recent atrocities that have been committed in the name of security. How will we unit to fight for our constitution? Something needs to happen fast.
Allen Writhen
This is suspicious, I wonder why some one would try to congest real opinions with filler comments by bots?
Loosing our Rights is a slow crawl towards Martial Law. We can not loose the ability to hold our government accountable for the recent atrocities that have been committed in the name of security. How will we unit to stand up for our constitution and reclaim our rights? Vote? Grassroots communities uniting? Something needs to happen fast.
Allen Writhen
This idea in Western civilization started with Virgin over in Europe, I believe. Apparently the Internet is too dangerous a tool for the average human being. And since we live in a fear-mongering society, I’m not surprised some ignorant in-the-pockets-of-the-unconscionably-wealthy twit decided to try passing something like this.
Jack
This is a God damned outrage. Fuck this. Who do those assholes think they are? I thought we still believed in our constitution. I wish Libertarians would get into more political positions. They seem to be the only people who still believe the founding fathers ,and in real freedom. Like when was quoted Benjamin Franklin “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Lagou
Speech made on the House floor during session is absolutely protected speech, regardless of whether there is actual malice involved or not.
Why do these assholes think they should be entitled to the privilege of absolute speech but not allow their constituents to enjoy the same?
Josh
hi
mwt9o9nw7m4w1cvk
good luck
Irving Decker
Wouldn’t this apply to ordinary journalists, too?
Ethan
It’s just that the scary bits tend to come from the most progressive types on the left, and the most anti-progress ones on the right, so it’s probably for the best that the pro-farmer sorts making the news are also the ones the least likely to hold forth on what they really think about Mexicans. ,
BadGirl63
Its awesome, very interesting
Left Handed Epiphone