A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center For Democracy and Technology

CDT Issues Principles, Expands Campaign to Protect Online Political Speech

1. CDT Issues Principles, Expands Campaign to Protect Online Political Speech

2. CDT Calls for Moratorium on Internet Rulemaking

3. Background: The Internet Offers Unique Diversity

1. CDT Issues Principles, Expands Campaign to Protect Online Political Speech

CDT is urging bloggers and other Internet users to sign a set of principles calling on Congress and the Federal Elections Commission to keep burdensome federal campaign finance laws from hindering the online political speech of individuals. The principles, developed in collaboration with the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) of George Washington University, respond to a recent proposal by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that considers extension of burdensome campaign finance laws to the Internet.

CDT and IPDI have launched a web site to promote the principles and to allow bloggers and other users to educate the FEC on the diversity of independent political commentary online.

To read and endorse the principles and make your voice heard at the FEC, go to the Protect Online Political Speech web site at http://fec.cdt.org

The "principles" campaign to protect online political speech has three goals:

• To gain widespread individual and organizational support for the free speech online principles. CDT believes that both supporters and opponents of campaign finance law can support the principles because they focus solely on individual speech and do not seek exemption for state political parties, organizations or corporations.
• To make it easy for bloggers and other Internet users to provide the FEC with detailed examples of how political speech is done on the Internet, how little it costs, and how it expands the number of voices.
• To provide background information about the issues, including an overview of the FEC's "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," a discussion of the problems for individual speech raised by the campaign finance laws, and a discussion of what is at stake in the current debate.

2. CDT Calls for Moratorium on Internet Rulemaking

In a second front in the campaign to protect political speech online, CDT is calling on Congress to impose an immediate moratorium on the FEC rulemaking. Such a moratorium would allow Congress time to act to ensure that individual online speakers are not covered by the campaign finance laws.

CDT urges citizens to call their Senators and Representative in Congress and urge them to impose a moratorium on the FEC rulemaking. For more information about who to call, go to http://www.cdt.org/action/fec/.

3. Background: The Internet Offers Unique Diversity

The Internet has greatly expanded the participation of ordinary citizens in the political process, and has opened up a huge diversity of alternative sources for political news and opinion. As the last election showed, the Internet is a powerful forum for democratic discourse. The Internet has made it possible for millions of ordinary Americans to have a real voice in electoral politics and to have access to an extraordinary array of news and opinion, delivered by bloggers and alternative media sources. The Internet furthers the prime goal of the campaign finance laws, which is to reduce the corrupting influence of big money on the election process. It is critical that Congress ensure that the Internet remains free from burdensome regulation.

Application of the complex campaign finance laws to individual speech online would chill this robust expression, thereby defeating the very purpose of the campaign finance laws, which is to counteract the role of big money in politics.

For more information: http://www.cdt.org/speech/political/ and http://fec.cdt.org.