"Free speech is vindicated as long as bloggers can post their half-baked unthinking diatribes to the web"

Your own words damn your argument.

I know it's a little long, but shouldn't this have been a comment on yesterday's post rather than a whole new article in itself?

Now, unless we're careful, we're going to find ourselves jumping back and forth between threads and not getting any coherent discussions going.

Just seems like an abuse of contributor privilege...

Dave - you're the politics editor - whadda you think?

John - you know i strongly disAgree with you on many topics, there are times when it goes far beyond driven twixt your Views and mine...

so much so that if we were to meet up IRL, either you would have to shoot me in self defense or i would gleefully spend hours breaking bits from your personage until you begged to give money to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU....

but i digress.... ( was teasing...really!)

i will Defend to the bitter End your absolute Right to spout off your silliness and to follow the course of Due Process as you see fit...

anything less would be anathema

Excelsior?

Dave - you're the politics editor - whadda you think?

I published it, which suggests I think it's fine. He's branched out into another aspect of the issue, and the thread over on the original article has pretty much run its course.

Dave

Doc D, Blogcritics doesn't limit what writers choose to write about, it only makes sure they are well written.

It's not up to Dave or any other Editor to decide if an article should be published unless it is extremely poorly written or just blatant hate or something like that. Blogcritics is wonderfully tolerant of a broad range of issues.

one caveat...grammar and punctuation zealots and fanatics!!!

they got zero tolerance there

but ya can say just about anything...

Excelsior?

they are just a bit anal about punctuation ain't they gonz?!??!

hey now...i fixed my propensity for creative capitalization and punctuation in my last two Articles...

but thas another Story...

yer up early, Andy...

Excelsior?

The one thing the author fails to respond to is that he has no legal argument and the FEC regulations regarding the Internet are strongly protective of individual liberty.

If you believe there are other FEC regulations worthy of legal challenge (or to-the-letter enforcement to prove their invalidity), go after them. I might well join you. But they actually got the Internet stuff right.

Finally, for someone who's trying to curtail 120K+ DailyKos users' rights to participate in political activity online, waving the "anti-SLAPP" flag is ironic indeed.

No one is trying to silence your readers... people are trying to make sure political committee stop trying to get around the law which requires disclosure.

Filing a few reports isn't going to silence you.

well John, the side effect is that you can never bitch about "frivolous lawsuits" and such anymore, cuz you KNOW some smart ass will link back to this and the previous article

just a chuckle...

Excelsior?

FEC complaints aren't lawsuits. They're not even analagous to lawsuits. Hell, we should be so luck if lawsuits are handled the same was as FEC complaints.

Before the Daily Kos is even served with this, 4 commissioners have to decide there is probable cause. Which means they won't even get involved until it is, by definition, not frivolous.

The judiciary should take note.

frivolous procedures...

but i can agree that lawsuits need help...i'm all for a review board to look shit over , and if found "frivolous" then the litigant's LAWYER gets no fee and pays all court costs for being an idiot in front of the bar...on the other hand, jury Awards should be left the fuck alone for when the case is NOT frivolous

could just be me

Excelsior?

I think if you made it possible to discipline lawyers for filing frivolous lawsuits (like you can with SLAPP suits) then you'd see a lot less of them.

Jury awards... well I wouldn't disagree if it weren't for some real patently ridiculous awards out there. For instance, one smoker being awarded half the net worth of Phillip Morris... how does that even make sense?

what price Life?

that's what we have juries for, i'd rather see pertinent suits make it into the courts, and ludicrous fines levied against those who have been proven to demonstrate criminal behavior/negligence/deliberate deceit

but this is another discussion for another time, i just advocate the balance be fair...nothing frivolous, but heavy measures for those caught fucking up...neither side gets their way completely, and the public at large is served in a manner of last resort

Excelsior?

John has every right to file a complaint, as I & several others have stated. It isn't a lawsuit. It's just a complaint. Frankly (& I have my solid Leftie credentials here on BC) if DK is a political organization - or Fox, or any other concern - then it ought to be required to state where its funding is coming from. That's only fair. Actually, this ought to be extended to any group which makes political statements, even if it's just the Girl Scouts. People should be able to be aware of where the backing - the sponsorship, the hidden agenda, if you will - is coming from, instead of having to swallow that such & such a statement is from the "People for a Concerned This or That" which is usually lies & bullshit for some corporate controlling concern or other trying to sound like ordinary folks.

In any event, even if John HAD filed a lawsuit, let him. It's his time & money. And as far as I know, a good many frivolous lawsuits ARE penalized: the person bringing the lawsuit is usually made to bear the court costs plus various other costs awarded to the defendant, sometimes to a considerable amount. I would agree there should also be some way to penalize the accomodating lawyer, but that will never happen, seeing as lawyers are the ones who write all the laws, & the bastards in congress are the biggest, most entrenched lawyers of all.

Anyway, John - I don't agree with your assessment, but keep assessing. It's your right to do so.

John, not only are you wrong on the law, but you're wrong on FEC procedure too, as well as being ignorant of Fed. R. Civ. P. 11. The "four commissioners" thing is patently false.

Whether one characterizes it as a "complaint" or a "lawsuit," it's still a frivolous thing that has already taken up too much of my time to respond to.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure don't apply to FEC complaints... if you're a lawyer, you should know that.

Second, it's well known "frivolous" lawsuits aren't punished, the threshold is very very high.

Third, not all lawsuits are in federal court... I shouldn't have to explain our judicial system to a lawyer... one whose services are apparently not in very high demand I might add.

Fourth, you know you have no cause of action anywhere in any place under any law to come after me in court, yet you continue to make SLAPP suit threats...

Fifth, before lecturing me about the law, I suggest you actually READ the law instead of quoting various summaries... you can do so here, particularly 437g. You know, the part where is says "an affirmative vote of 4 of its members, that it has reason to believe that a person has committed, or is about to commit, a violation of
this Act or chapter 95 or chapter 96 of title 26, the Commission shall, through its chairman or vice chairman, notify the person of the alleged
violation."

Please read the law... you're really tranishing the reputation of the field.

You said, "I think if you made it possible to discipline lawyers for filing frivolous lawsuits (like you can with SLAPP suits) then you'd see a lot less of them."

I pointed out Rule 11. Said nothing about whether it applied here. Oh, and from 437g?

"Within 5 days after receipt of a complaint, the Commission shall notify, in writing, any person alleged in the complaint to have committed such a violation. Before the Commission conducts any vote on the complaint, other than a vote to dismiss, any person so notified shall have the opportunity to demonstrate, in writing, to the Commission within 15 days after notification that no action should be taken against such person on the basis of the complaint."

I was wrong on getting notice, but you were wrong and hysterically so on the patently false crack about 4 commissioners... you're a lawyer you have no excuse.

Rule 11 has rarely if every been applied to lawyers filing frivolous lawsuits, at least in the general case in how that word is used. For the most part, it is used for making false claims.

In fact, I'd read up on that rule while your at it, considering you're the one making SLAPP suit threats.

You claimed, "Before the Daily Kos is even served with this, 4 commissioners have to decide there is probable cause."

Will you now concede this is false?

I already did, it should read "before this goes anywhere, 4 commissioners need to agree" will you concede that your SLAPP suit threats are illegal and unethical?

Will you agree that you have no grounds whatsoever to go after me for costs?

Will you concede that your hysterical scaremongering about how the FEC is going to shut down the Daily Kos is false?

Didn't think so.

Should you be billing some clients now?

The writer of this piece says he refuses to live in fear of his government.

Fine, get rid of that government, then.

Stop flittering around in the tiny branches--go for the trunk!

And Chris, there is absolutely no guarantee of well-written articles on this site. In fact, most of them are very poorly written and would not pass muster in a Composition 101 class.

You've still got it wrong, John. I'm done with the public lectures in law.

Good, Adam, because your lectures are contradicting the law as written.

RE: I will not be afraid to petition my government to change bad and unpopular laws.

But this is not what you are doing at all. You are attempting to set the hounds of the government on a site that you don't like.

I thought that most of the responses to your first post were mild, and well-considered.

And although I am not accusing you of doing the same thing, your desire to file a complaint reminded me of a local congressman here in Southern California who tried to file a complaint against two talk show hosts who had a little contest going called "Political Human Sacrifice" in which they targeted a Republican incumbent whose stand on immigration they did not like. The congressman accused them of using air time to in effect endorse and serve as a contributor to his opponent. One irony is that previously he had been their buddy. As long as they said nice things about him.

His complaint was, of course, laughed out of the commission room.

Please keep us posted on the results of your efforts.

I do not believe that the DailyCommunist should have its "speech" regulated by the federal government. Nor should any other blog, for that matter.

But I do think that JB has the right, as a citizen, to file a complaint to the FEC if he wants to. And then the FEC will view his complaint and (hopefully) side with freedom of speech.

Of course, this whole issue would be moot if John McKennedy and his allies in the Congress (and an wildly supportive MSM) hadn't forced campaign finance "reform" down our throats in the first place (with Dubya signing the bill into law "with reservations").

When the gov't gets into the business of regulating free speech (especially political speech), these sort of things are bound to happen. It's a form of "rent-seeking" behavior - but instead of trying to distort the economic market, it's an attempt to distort the political speech market. Kinda like the "Fairness Doctrine" that lib Dems love so much...

John,

I have read both your posts and most of the comments on each. I have read through you're complaint file with the FEC July 23, 2007.

I have to commend you on your willingness to take a stand on such a heated and legal issue and at the same time maintaining FEC respect for Internet Freedom.

I appears that from what Adam B has posted on BC and DK he is ...(1) cleanly missing your legal points as do most of the other posters (2) Adam B is making emotional legal threats against you over on DK and that only happens when someone is feeling heat.

Additionally Adam B is claiming over on DK that you are trying to stifle the speech of every member of the DK site. From every thing I have read so fare this has never been your intention but rather that DK fits the discription of the new FEC law requiring them to disclose there paid avertisers. Why Adam B would chose to propose such a fallacy is suspect.

It appears that you have a case well within the new letter of the laws of the FEC. Where the FEC decides to take this matter should be most interesting is seeing if they have the heart and mind to apply their new laws.

I know that you are aware that on March 28, 2005, in response to the federal court's ruling in Shays v. FEC, the FEC approved the release of a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" ("NPRM"), proposing, among other things, to interpret a key term in BCRA - "public communication" - to cover certain Internet content.

The primary actions proposed in the FEC new laws concerning your filing on this new law are:

(1) The extend definition of "public communications" to include paid advertisements placed on third parties' Internet web sites. Under the rules overturned by federal court, the term "public communication" had generally not included Internet communications. The term "public communication" is used in a number of important places throughout the FEC's campaign finance regulations, and thus the inclusion of paid Internet ads has a repercussions in a number of areas.

(2) To expand the reach of the campaign finance "disclaimer" requirement to include paid Internet advertisements. Under the new disclaimer rules, people placing paid advertisements on the Internet would be required to disclose their name and address.

Like it or not, that is the new FEC law.

Your comback to Adam B calling you are "wanker" was pricless. We know where he started puberty. Seeing that Daily Kos is owned by a UK media conglomerate this goes deeper then some of us might want to know. It would appear that the Brights are back for another try.

You're not to blame for joining a lynch mob, it's the lynch mob's fault?

[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]

Actually, Franco, so we're all clear on this; that 2005 thing was the proposal -- the FEC took testimony and thousands of written comments in 2005, and this 2006 document reflects the actual final rules. Please pay attention to the discussion of the media exemption and the rules regarding voluntary activity online.

#30 Adam B.

Actually I was sighting from the FEC final ruling to Congress following my reference to the NPRM. Sorry I did not make that clear.

I only offered both to bring in the whole scope for anyone turly interested.

OK, lets get specific on the final ruling, which is no longer a "pay attention to the discussion" issuse, because it is now modified and expanded into current FEC/CFR law.

The FEC final Rules and Regulations Federal Register #18589 clearly states "The revised definition of ''public communication'' which now includes paid Internet advertising placed on another person's website" The law is clear on this.

Adam, that is a disturbing assertion that you keep making against John's legally and well thought out filed complaint with the FEC. This fallacy keeps repeating itself in your posts. To try and spin-twist John's complaint into something that it is not does not stack up.

The specific facts in John's complaint filed with the FEC do NOT support your assertion. What is it that threatens you, and others, that you have to continually try and spin-twist it off the true facts

You're stating that he wants to stifle and or shut down DK is spin. This is about disclose and nothing else and I know you know that.

Can you address why you and DK are so adamantly against and threatened by having to disclose the names and addresses of its advertisers it takes money from and posts those adds for them on the DK site. Is there something dreadful you and DK do not want to have to disclose? What the hell could that be? You are making yourself and DK look susbect by refusing to address the simple and clear reality of this filed complaint. Can you explain that?

Unless you want to take the 5th to prevent incriminating yourself and or DK on possibly bigger issues this disclosure might involve. Its not adding up Adam.

If you choose to take the "rules regarding voluntary activity online" and try and stack that up against ""public communication that now includes paid Internet advertising placed on another person's website" and try your case in court you have that right and I support it.

But if I were you I would have Kos Media, LLC and Mr. Markos Moulitsas get their financial statements in undiminished order and arranged for a through review before proceeding.

Franco, you're right that the regulations require disclaimers and disclosure by advertisers which advocate a candidate/party/PAC. All of DailyKos' advertisers do so through their ads or the sites to which they link.

In other words, if you want to see who's advertising on DailyKos, look at the ads.

#32 -- Adam B.

The new FEC law dose not require DK to be obligated to show it to me, or to anyone else on their website. That's not even creative spin Adam, you're getting boring.

I see you are still dodging the issues on the facts. I'll take that to mean your taking the 5th.