Cassandra would like us all to take a valium, do our yoga—basically, to calm down with respect to the Federal Election Commission, and the possibility that it will try to regulate speech on the internet:

It does begin to seem that the B-sphere may be getting their collective knickers in a twist for naught. Because while there are aspects of blogging that legitimately fall under the purview of McCain-Feingold, they are narrow in scope and don't apply to the vast majority of independent bloggers. I continue to believe the FEC would be insane (and indeed has no authority) to regulate independent bloggers absent some financial involvement with political campaigns. It's that simple: keep your nose clean and your powder dry, and you've nothing to worry about.

She points out that several of the Commissioners are on record as saying electronic speech should be protected for individual bloggers, as long as large amounts of money are not changing hands.

Maybe. Nonetheless, I'm not against reminding the government exactly where its powers come from, and just how interesting life will be if it gets both the Leftosphere and the Rightosphere (along with the Libertarianosphere and the Greenosphere, for that matter) united against it.

And I don't care if the FEC thinks I'm a kook, so long as it acknowledges that the Constitution gives me the right to yammer on to my heart's content about politics.

These people don't know what trouble looks like. They really don't. But I hope they sense it on some level.

From the "have you noticed?" file: Cassandra lives up to her name . . . well, about as well as I live up to mine. She is, quite simply, the best, and we differ here more on strategic issues than philosophy.

Via Pirate's Cove.

Posted by: Attila at 08:58 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 I really think they do understand that, AG. And I have no problem with reminding them - I've always been more of a 'trust, but verify' sort, myself. Hasen's piece (today) was very interesting - just goes to show you that committees don't draft 47-page regs overnite. I just felt the B-sphere was being manipulated by Brad Smith for his own reasons and didn't much care for it. But I've already said all that, so I'll shut up now Thanks for the link!

Posted by: Cassandra at March 25, 2005 08:05 AM (289B8)

2 I blame the Barry Bonds and the media. I'm sure the Pirate would agree

Posted by: William Teach at March 25, 2005 12:15 PM (cuTsc)

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