Democrats and FEC to crack down on political blogs

In an extraordinary attempt to censor blogs, a recent ruling by a judge and the failure of three Democrat Federal Electoral Commission (FEC) Commissioners to support their Republican counterparts from exempting Internet communications from the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws of 2002 may result in an unprecedented crackdown on political blogs, CNET reports in an interview with Bradley Smith of the FEC.

In the interview, Smith states that the ruling, combined with failure by the Commissioners to maintain a ban on internet activity, means that bloggers even linking to the web sites of their favourite party or political leader could be construed to be a donation to the campaign and subject to strict regulation.

There is some discussion of bloggers being granted a press exemption; however current legislation does not list electronic media in the grounds for the press exemption.

The full interview can be read here.

The net result could well be that whilst main stream media will be left free to provide their often biased coverage of matters political, bloggers will be stifled in what they can say or do.

(via Micro Persuasion)