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Sa Mar 19 -

BUZZ IN THE BLOGSPHERE -

Some lively discussion going on here and there about this article by Declan McCullagh:

*Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.*

::The coming crackdown on blogging

+ It's just something to be aware of. Patterico, who is a lawyer of some kind, has blogged about it HERE. I'm not sure that Patterico understands that this is more about "following the money" than about censoring bloggers. Or maybe it's McCullagh who isn't very clear about it. Or just maybe my own impression is faulty. At any rate, there will probably be much more discussion about it.

And, for whatever it's worth, the eruption of this little controversy reminded me of a famous poster by Ben Shahn illustrating the quotation: You Have Not Converted a Man Because You Have Silenced Him.

Via On The Third Hand blog.
(See my sidebar for link)

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