Now the radicals in government want to impose more limits on free speech. This time they go after politicians, your elected representatives.
Members of the House will be permitted to use third-party Web sites like YouTube to communicate with constituents as long as the content is for official purposes, and not personal, commercial or campaign communication, according to rules adopted Thursday by the House Administration Committee.
This is like telling Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin which newspapers he could use to publish which articles or which street corners, salons, taverns, and dining establishments he could frequent to promulgate his views. I see nothing wrong with Senators using any third party media as long as it is outside of the main web site for governmental purposes.
One plan by Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., who chairs the commission charged with drafting the language for the Administration Committee, was slammed by Minority Leader Boehner in July as “an attack on free speech.”
We must allow our elected leaders the same freedoms that you and I enjoy. This is America.
But new rules were established for using the government-supplied web sites and this is very acceptable in order to maintain decorum and consistency for our government. But when it extends to third party web sites, it becomes unacceptable.
“When a link to a Web site outside the member’s official site is embedded on the member’s official site, the member’s site must include an exit notice advising the visitor when they are leaving the House,” the rules state. “This exit notice must also include a disclaimer that neither the member nor the House is responsible for the content of the linked site(s).” (Ed.note: Acceptable)
The Senate regulations go further by creating a “nonexhaustive list” of approved sites that must agree to disclose when content is maintained by a Senate office. (Ed. Note: Not Acceptable)
For the Senate, third-party sites would also be banned from adding commercial or political material or links to an office-maintained page, and would be banned from using data-gathering tools on a Senate-maintained page that collect and distribute personal information on users. ( Ed. Note : Totally unacceptable on the first point and totally acceptable on the second.)
Save America and Vote Responsibly in 2008. Keep America free.
3 responses so far ↓
Cari // October 7, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I think I understand the intention here. I think the point is to make sure that all candidate-sponsored advertising/political material is clearly identified as being from that candidate. The “I approve this message” stamp. How can you as a web surfer be sure that a political ad you are seeing is really from the candidate and not from some hate-mongering special interest group? Or vice versa? It’s not to hard to dice and splice video/audio to make it appear that a candidate supports whatever is posted.
The problem here is that you and I don’t need the government to tell us what is and is not real on the internet. You and I know that surfing the internet (YouTube, especially) is like watching movies–most of it is make-believe.
The other (perhaps hidden) intention here is to limit the popularity of third-party candidates. If you can’t campaign on YouTube or FaceBook, then you have to campaign on TV, which costs lots of money that independents do not generally have.
Here’s my question: if this is a House Administration Committee rule, does it only apply to incumbents? Is a person subject to the HAC rules before he or she becomes a Congressperson?
Ben // October 30, 2008 at 10:40 am
another thing that i find interesting is celebrities are really using their power to sway peoples votes. for example, this band everclear wrote this song “Jesus was a democrat” and frankly, for one I dont think of Everclear as a good band at all, but secondly, they wrote this song knowing that it would piss people off. I dont know how I feel about celebs and singers but some of them are just over the top and crossing the line.
ReasonableCitizen // November 1, 2008 at 4:38 am
Thanks for stopping by. I am not sure what you mean when you say that you don’t know how you feel about celebs and singers. What is there to ‘feel’?
I infer that you are trying to decide a moral question about whether singers/celebs are right or wrong, good or bad. They are just people and some are good and some are bad. Your task is to figure out which are which.
I see that you dislike Everclear because their motive was to write a song to ‘piss people off’. Do you fear the fact that Jesus was a peace maker, believed in social justice, and was against the religious authorities? That he taught peace instead of war? That he taught others to care for those who cannot care for themselves?
Jesus was no Democrat. But he was liberal in the true sense of the word. He did not accept that people are as they are ( like conservatives today). He believed that people could change their ways, their beliefs, and their actions. That is very liberal thinking and has nothing to do with socialism or leftist thinking.