Missed one while I was away: Philly blogger/lawyer Adam C. Bonin saved the Internet from politics.
Not exactly, but he did get a great result in the case before the Federal Election Commission, which was considering regulating political activity on blogs. On March 27, the commission granted a media exemption to bloggers for their election-related activities. Bonin represented A-list bloggers Atrios, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and Matt Stoller, each of whom testified in D.C.
Bloggers on all sides of the political spectrum squawked that the government threatened to limit free speech and impose limits that writers for MSM outlets escape. Supporters of regulation worried that some blogs were being used to advance political agendas. Earlier Blinq piece here.
While we're beating a dead horse at the moment let me disagree with the basic framing here, which was:
Supporters of regulation worried that some blogs were being used to advance political agendas. Earlier Blinq piece here.
And the earlier Blinq piece:
The FEC rules respond to concerns like those expressed by Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and author of the Election Law blog. He told the Washington Post of a scenario where "somebody is blogging at the behest of a campaign and nobody knows it. If, for example, for are a U.S. Senate candidate and you have a blogger who you're paying to write good things about you and bad things about your opponent, it will eventually come out. But that may not come out until after the election."
Just about every day I can turn on CNN and see some random "political consultant" opine on politics. I don't know who their clients are, and I doubt CNN does either.
I'm all for transparency, but we need to stop pretending that the lack of transparency is a danger unique to the internet.
Anyone know who Bob Shrum's clients are? James Carville's? Me neither.