Punching Stupid and Evil in the Face Since 1986!

"We are on strike, we the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties."-John Galt

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Kagen and all of the House are coming after your free speech rights

As is par for the course these days from an Aminstration drunk with power, Congress is set to pass legislation that would ultimately lead to a clamp down on free speech. More specifically, it would lead to a policing and patrolling of bloggers writing about politics. Disguised as the DISCLOSE Act, we are told the original intent was to counteract some of the findings from the Citizens United decision where the Supreme Court rejected disparate treatment of media corporations and other corporations (including nonprofit groups) in campaign finance law. “Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment,” Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The DISCLOSE Act’s purpose, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Chris Van Hollen and other “reformers,” is simply to require disclosure of corporate and union political speech after the Supreme Court’s January decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission held that the government could not ban political expenditures by companies, nonprofit groups, and labor unions.
The bill, however, would radically redefine how the FEC regulates political commentary. A section of the DISCLOSE Act would exempt traditional media outlets from coordination regulations, but the exemption does not include bloggers, only “a communication appearing in a news story,commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication…”
From there they go on to say “the FEC is most likely to stand by the 2006 Internet rules and only reach PAID political banner ads; not bloggers.” Most likely? This from a government that has already shown itself to be the most over-reaching, Constitution bending, public sentiment dismissing Administration ever?!?!?!?! Yeah, I don't think so; Thanks.

When you combine this with the fact that the latest Supreme Court nominee, Elana Kagen, has absolutely no love or respect for the First Amendment, there isn't a snowballs chance in hell I'm taking that bet. She has been fighting her entire political career to limit free speech-even going so far as to say some speech can be regulated when it's not good for society.

"The question that remains open for me is whether profound and indisputable harms can be taken into account for the purpose of lowering the standard of review applicable to viewpoint-based underinclusion -- whether and when they may negate our usually justifiable concerns about the effects and motives of such government action," she wrote. "It may be possible to develop guidelines for this purpose -- guidelines that will isolate and harshly confine a set of underinclusion cases in which viewpoint distinctions should be tolerated."
In case that doesn't make any sense, she wants to shut you up because you offend her, but her view points and those who agree with her are A-O-K! We are increasingly moving in to a time I would have never dreamed of in days gone by. Until this Administration I would have never in a million years worry I might lose the right to express myself or my dissatisfaction with my government or the elected officials in it. Now I'm not so sure.

The government is going to use the FEC, the FCC, Net Neutrality and anything else at their disposal to shut us up. They don't like the truth spilling out all over the Internet. We have never before lived in a time when lies and half truths could be so easily and quickly dispelled. They don't like that at all....but we ain't goin' no where!

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