D.D. 03/03/05

Bloggers could be limited to not linking to political campaign websites or writing in praise of particular campaigns in light of a recently ruling requiring FEC rules to be applied to the web. Earlier the FEC exempted the Internet from McCain-Feingold regulations, but a federal judge has overturned that decision and now says any cordinated campaigning over the Internet must be regulated. At the bare minimum, these new regulations would not allow blogs to fundraise in the way of Daily Kos or RedState and any blogger linking a candidate's website would have to consider however much traffic generated by their link a sort of in kind contribution to the campaign, which has dollar-amount limits. The worst part is that Democratic Commissioners on the FEC are lax in their opposition to this ruling because the generally see the Internet as helping Republican candidates.