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| Jail time for Fred? Congress to require bloggers to register |
| 2007-01-18 |
| In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but isn't, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress. 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. Does a Tip Jar count? On January 9, the Senate passed Amendment 7 to S. 1, to create criminal penalties, including up to one year in jail, if someone 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report.' That amendment was introduced by Senator David Vitter (R-LA). Senator Vitter, however, is now a co-sponsor of Amendment 20 by Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) to remove Section 220 from the bill. Unless Amendment 20 succeeds, the Senate will have criminalized the exercise of First Amendment rights. We'd be living under totalitarianism, not democracy. Thousands of nonprofit leaders, bloggers, and other citizens have hammered the Senate with calls in opposition to Section 220, which seeks to silence the grassroots. The criminal provisions will scare citizens into silence. The legislation regulates small, legitimate nonprofits, bloggers, and individuals, but creates loopholes for corporations, unions, and large membership organizations that would be able to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars, yet not report. Congress is trying to blame the grassroots, which are American citizens engaging in their First Amendment rights, for Washington's internal corruption problems. |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #8 OK, so let us suppose that this POS actually passes; where is the bureacracy that will actually count blognoses: everybody here use the same nym, but each will have a subtle id : JOE IS ALL CAPS, f'instance, TW would have tea and crumpet reference buried somewheres... the avg IQ and Macgyver Quotient here @ the burg is higher than the Total of all the donks. Having to parse each entry for IP address would be too hard. But there could always be a slave computer that all would route to, so all posts would come from that slave; then the burg population would = 1! |
| Posted by: USN, ret. 2007-01-18 23:47 |
| #7 McCain-Feingold was clearly unconstitutional. Likewise a lot of 'emminent domain' siezures. The government decides what is or is not Constitutional. And that, my friends, is the real reason the Second Amendment was written - to make it possible for the People to reclaim the Constitution from the government. But the Founders did not forsee 'government schools.' Arrrggghhh!!! |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-01-18 22:45 |
| #6 Isn't this against the people's right to peacefully assemble? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2007-01-18 22:08 |
| #5 MATRIX + SKYNET, etc. Part Septieme??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-18 22:07 |
| #4 NMU - Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. There is no substantial difference between the parties as they are now constituted. At least the Dems are responsive to their moonbat base. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2007-01-18 20:43 |
| #3 Nobody did it yet. Reid hasn't exactly been batting 1.000 so far. |
| Posted by: Threremp Spomomble3987 2007-01-18 20:12 |
| #2 All of you conservatives who voted for Dems or stayed home to "send a message" to the Republicans? YOU did this. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-01-18 20:10 |
| #1 I bet the MSM's lobbied hard to get this passed. Nice effort to shut bloggers down. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2007-01-18 19:42 |