I may be a lobbyist
Go free speech!
Quick, 3,745 of you stop clicking here or I might be a lobbyist someday:
“Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.
“The bill would require reporting of ‘paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying,’ but defines ‘paid’ merely as communications to 500 or more members of the public, with no other qualifiers.”
That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:31 am
For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.
Anyone who supports such a measure needs to be exiled or hanged. Being a compassionate person, I’ll let them choose which option they’d prefer.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Bruce, treason is treason. To the gallows!
I do find it amusing, however, that legislation like this exists. Clearly the blogosphere has some politicians shaking in their boots. They have seen a taste of the potential power we wield, and they want to do anything they can to stifle it before we start changing the outcomes of major elections (which, by the way, I think we are already doing.)
Of course, this wouldn’t affect my blog, which has about 3 readers including me and my wife….
January 10th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I missed the justification…. was it that free speech emboldens the terrorists or was it dangerous to children? Either way, we should make more sacrifices….
January 10th, 2008 at 11:34 am
That “awkward” stage is getting closer and closer to being over.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
How would it effect, say the Joyce Foundation and all the anti-rights groups they fund?
January 10th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Maybe we could claim that the internet is not the public as we choose what sites to navigate to, thus are a self-selected group.
I think you’d have to broadcast a message to reach “the public”.
January 10th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
/e looks at watch….
January 10th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
The only political question left unanswered in the history of The Decline and Fall of the First US Republic is which right was destroyed first, the First or the Second Amendments?
Responsible community leaders should presently be considering just how they are going to muster their militias.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Quick! Someone write a WordPress plugin that limits the number of RSS subscribers to 499!!!