Thank You for Your Support
The Rocky Mountain News has come out in full favor of full First Amendment rights for bloggers:
This nation that so enshrines free expression still hasn’t decided for certain whether bloggers should have the same leeway that, ahem, newspaper editorials and other traditional forms of opinion enjoy. Fortunately, Congress will soon have an opportunity to give Web blogs more durable First Amendment protection.
In the coming days, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., is set to introduce The Blogger Protection Act of 2008. The bill would enact in law regulations that were handed down two years ago by the Federal Election Commission regarding bloggers and campaign finance laws.
The editorial concludes, “The Blogger Protection Act would tell the FEC – not to mention the courts – that such blatant attacks on political expression violate the First Amendment, and cannot prevail.”
A-freakin’-men.
I gotta tell you, I have mixed feelings on this, but I’m coming down more on the “This is a depressing development” side.
Why do bloggers need a law to give them First Amendment rights? Isn’t that already in the Constitution and isn’t that supposed to be the law of the land? Where is there an exception for “newspaper editors and other traditional forms of opinion”?
I guess this is a good thing but it still infuriates to no end the idea that this needs a law spelling it out. If you codify it as a government given privilege rather than being treated as just another way to exercise our inalienable rights, then it could then be “taken away.” Of course, unless Kos actually has real power and wishes to use it for this, I doubt a Fairness Doctrine obsessed congress would ever pass this.
Sigh.
Since I am firmly in ‘the Constitution is Pretty Fucking Clear” camp, I have to agree with our first two commentators. The fact that there was ever a question about bloggers having the same First Amendment protections as the ‘traditional’ media in this country just boggles the mind.
Actually, I suppose it only boggles if you assume that that attitude results from massive stupidity and/or ignorance. If you take a more cynical position and assume that the attitude results from the inclination of people, particularly those in power, to protect their position, I suppose it makes a perverted sort of sense.