Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the blogosphere …
Politicians have egos. Let’s face it, you need a healthy ego to run for public office. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, when politicians conspire with the bureaucracy – and each other- to prevent average citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights, something is WRONG!
To that end, politicians are turning to campaign finance laws to prevent citizen bloggers from criticizing those self same politicians:
In Ohio, for instance, Edmund Corsi runs GeaugaConstitutionalCouncil.org, a blog that praises and criticizes various local officials. Well, it turns out that some of those officials don’t like getting criticized. Rather than responding with their own speech, however, those pols got the Geauga Board of Elections to file a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission. They said that Corsi violated Ohio’s campaign finance laws because he failed to register, appoint a treasurer and file regular financial reports with the state before daring to speak.
After some legal wrangling, the Commission now reads the complaint to say that Corsi violated the law by not disclosing his name and home address on the website. But, as the Institute for Justice has repeatedly pointed out, mandatory disclosure laws cause far too many people to remain silent. Thankfully, an Ohio-based public interest law firm has come to Corsi’s defense and asked for these charges to be dismissed.
I’m not a huge fan of anonymous blogging, but I certainly don’t support government interfering with the right of an individual to engage in that practice. What would be next? Ending all anonymous commenting? Sure, some folks would argue that this would promote a more “civil” debate on the internet. It would, if by “civil” you mean one that lacks vigor and passion. We as readers have a responsibility to be critical of the content placed in front of us – NOT the government.
The Institute for Justice’s Robert Frommer hits the nail right on the head:
If campaign finance “reformers” hate anything, it’s the idea that someone somewhere might be speaking freely about politics.
It’s one thing to require an authority line on something relatively static like a campaign website, blog, or even Facebook page. However, are we going to see requirements to include an authority line on every “Tweet”? What about “Re-Tweets”? Those 140 characters are going to be used up pretty fast.
“Reformers” will never learn. The only means to enact such “reform” is by instituting a police state. Personally, I’ll take a coarser public debate. At least we’ll have a debate then.
from Delmarva Dealings
