Today =Deadline for Comments to FEC re Political Activity on the Net

[sarahlee]

Friday, June 3 = Deadline for Comments to the FEC re Political Activity on the Internet

More info:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/2/10531/11402

and

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/2/172512/8304

If you don't feel like you are articulate enough to write on this subject PLEASE, go to the Center for Democracy and Technology and sign on to their eleven principles for how the FEC should proceed.
http://fec.cdt.org/signup.php

After the comment period closes, their wil be two days of live testimony at the end of the month, then the FEC has to vote on and approve regulations.


From the lawyer who is writing the comments for Markos, Atrios and BOPNews:

If bloggers are not considered under the media exemption, then everything they say can be considered an "in-kind contribution" to political campaigns, subject to reporting requirements, disclosure requirements and limits. Group blogs would become "political action committees" that would need to file. A blogger who incorporates would violate the law with the first word he said supporting a federal candidate. And more.

Let me give one example of a detail in the proposed regulations that you might be concerned with: under current regulations (11 CFR 114.9), employees and stockholders of a corporation, as well as officials, members, and employees of a labor organization, are allowed to use corporate or labor organization "facilities" for individual volunteer activities in connection with a Federal election, only if that use is "occasional, isolated, or incidental."

To be "occasional, isolated, or incidental", it cannot prevent the individual from carrying out her normal duties or interfere with the corporation or labor organization carrying out its normal activities. As a "safe harbor", you're automatically fine if it does not exceed one hour per week or four hours per month.

They'd like to extend this to your use of computers and email as well -- and, mind you, if you're doing this from your private college's computers or network, your school may well be legally incorporated.

So, is 1hr/week, 4hr/month enough time for you to read blogs and participate from work?

Today is the last day for comments -

1 - Sign onto the Center for Democracy and Technology's, (CDT) eleven principles for how the FEC should proceed.
http://fec.cdt.org/signup.php

2 - Help the CDT educate the regulators as to how you use the Internet.
http://fec.cdt.org/educate.html

3 - Send in your own comments:
Electronic comments must be sent to either [e-mail]
or submitted through the Federal eRegulations Portal at http://www.regulations.gov/TOPIC_11.cfm

Any commenters who submit electronic comments and wish to testify at the hearing on this rulemaking must also send a copy of their comments to [e-mail].

If the electronic comments include an attachment, the attachment must be in the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) format.

Faxed comments must be sent to [phone], with hard copy followup.

Hard copy comments and hard copy follow-up of faxed comments must be sent to:

Federal Election Commission,
999 E Street, NW.,
Washington, DC 20463.

All comments must include the full name and postal service address of the commenter or they will not be considered. The Commission will post comments on its Web site after the comment period ends.

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[havocmom]

1. Thank you

and :kick:

[sarahlee]

2. Thank YOU!

I am amazed that no one is discussing this here. Hope that means that every one has already sent their comments in.

[havocmom]

3. There have been some threads earlier in the week

as I recall, but it is important and should be kept out front to get lots of attention and activity.

[Karenina]

4. Kick!

:kick:

[Dinger]

5. Infinity Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[sarahlee]

6. Thanks

Thanks for the kick!

[orleans]

7. i signed on. thank you. i didn' know about this!

(pssst. did you sign the letter?
pass it on. tell your friends.
here's the link)

[sarahlee]

8. Time is running out. . .

Some of the comments are being made available on-line.

From Kos just a bit ago:

Joining Carol Darr and GWU's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet on the "citizen journalist enemies list" is a coalition of "reformer" groups that can't stand the fact that the Internet is the epitome of (small "d") democratic media.

The groups are Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Determining what is a legitimate press function? So according to these jokers, no blogger will have a press exemption unless they hire a campaign lawyer to file for an advisory opinion with the FEC? Or until those bloggers get hit with a multitude of frivolous complaints from partisan political enemies? Way to chill the medium.

More . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/3/145825/4542

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