Regulation of Speech

The Democrats on the Federal Election Commission want to extend it.

The top Democrat [Vice Chairwoman Ann Ravel] on the Federal Election Commission strongly suggested Friday that regulators look at extending their authority to election-themed Internet videos—an area that for years has been largely hands-off for the government.

This woman, in line to become the FEC Chair, is beefing among other things that the FEC ignores the Internet’s influence on politics. Meanwhile, she seems to be ignoring the print, broadcast, and cable media’s influence on politics.

Oh, wait—speech already is regulated there. Those media and the ad generators on them are required to report, among other things, the cost of their political advertisements and to include in the ads “disclaimers” identifying who’s “responsible” for “the content of this ad.”

Ravel has insisted that rules applicable to these ads should apply to Internet ads, also.

That last is a fair beef. Here’s a proposal, then: how about deregulating speech in the other venues?

Nah. No Democrat is willing to do that.

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