The Regulator
John McCain Wants To Regulate You Until You Shut Up
By The Directors Posted in 2008 — Comments (31) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
We'd love it if, just once, John McCain's good intentions led to something besides massive government regulation of our daily lives.
Sadly, it is not to be.
Read on.
Through a vaguely written last-minute piece of legislation, scrawled on a napkin by a staffer who could've used an extra Red Bull, McCain would solve the problem of online child pornography by regulating the heck out of the internet in the form of massive fines for sites that allow any obscenity to slip through. The target area includes everything from message boards to MySpace to (if the smart lawyers who don't work for McCain are right) Redstate and other membership-based blogs.
This is exactly the reason why McCain has such little support from social conservatives. Either this misguided legislation is completely honorable, and McCain's just that naïve, or it's another sloppy attempt to throw a bone to the socon base. We think it's a blatantly crass attempt, insultingly so, with the implicit assumption that right wingers are suspicious of internet freedom. As John Cleese would say, it's irritating but obvious – like setting Julie Andrews on fire.
The more you dig out of this piece of legislation, the more frightening it becomes. Bloggers could be forced to pay fines for not regulating the amount of spam on their blog – any links that make it through the obscenity filters could spark regulation and punishment – and in addition, according to the smart folks at the Center for Democracy & Technology, any membership-based site that allowed a sexual predator to register could be subject to penalties:
The bill would also require sexual predators to register their email addresses and Instant Messaging ids with law enforcement, and social networking sites, blogs and other chat sites would have an obligation to monitor and prevent predators from becoming members of the site.
Let's translate: if you're a blogger who wants people to register on your site, you don't just have to keep an up-to-date spam filter or link blacklist, you have to actively block people from registering with your site based on the email addresses they've sent in to the online sex predator patrol.
Given the obvious problems of blog spam, why anyone would continue to use a commenting system if McCain's bill passed and risk a fine that could bankrupt most bloggers is a real question. For your average 400-hit count mommyblogger, monitoring spam and user registration is an irritating task. With a site the size of Redstate, we'd have to hire someone fulltime. With a site the size of MySpace…well, Juan from MySpace IT just stabbed himself in the eye with a fork.
Senator McCain, we're sorry, but there are better ways to fight child pornography, methods that don't take away rights for law-abiding Americans or threaten the very existence of the blogosphere. Methods such as increasing the funding for the FBI's child protection activities (historically an extremely underfunded portion of the bureau), giving block grants to state police forces to help track down predators, and enforcing the laws we have on the books.
But that isn't a sufficient expression of good intentions, is it Senator McCain? At least, not good enough to get in a press release to the swing states. So instead, you give us a hefty helping of regulatory powers, massive fines, and encroachment on personal freedom. You like that last one, don't you? We know from experience that's what really gets your engine running.
Please, Senator McCain – if you want to reach out clumsily to social conservatives, don't do it by making a bigger enemy of the internet than you already have. Don't treat us like we're stupid, and don't hire staff who do the same. And most of all, don't penalize individuals for having online message boards or blogs, or make us jump through ridiculous hoops or live in fear of your bankrupting fines just to express our opinions online.
It's hard enough to keep Mark Foley from registering here, after all.
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The Regulator 31 Comments (0 topical, 31 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
With the President signing off on CFR and SCOTUS laying the constitutional groundwork for regulating speech, there is no logical end to it.
Odds are the good senator doesn't even grasp the legislation or its ramifications; odds are just as great he doesn't care. This is just the latest shiny thing for McCain to embrace to gain attention, which seems to be his philosophy about governance: if it attracts the spotlight, it must be good.
I won't vote for McCain under any circumstances. And for once, this happens to have nothing to do with his policies or ideology (and that assumes he has one). This post has nothing to do with social conservatism, moderate Republicanism, or any other brand of politics or "isms." The man is simply unfit to be president of the United States, and the Republican Party had better come to grips with that reality soon.
This will be just as successful and lacking in unintended consequences as Campaign Finance reform.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Somebody from McCain's office contacted Glenn & insisted that the concerns were totally blown out of proportion. McCain wants to go after the "MySpace"s of the world not individual bloggers.
HOGWASH.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
You know the rest.
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"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, when asked by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "Are we at war, Helen?"
but it seems to me to be difficult if not neigh on to impossible that write a law that discriminates by "size." And on what basis must a site like "MySpace" be penalized but not "MomsBlog" --- sounds like an equal protection problem to me, but what do I know.
John
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Ethnic humor is part of human nature. The Dutch tell Belgian jokes. The Belgians tell French jokes. The French tell English jokes. The English tell Irish jokes. The Irish tell Irish jokes.
If you're a business with 50 or fewer people you are a small business and subject to one set of laws. If you higher a 51st person,... welcome to the world of big business and a new set of regs.
Actually, I can see a simple mechanism to make it work: National registry where sex offenders are required to register, the blog updates the sex offenders list from that site on a regular basis and they are immune to charges thereafter. The site of course would require better real world engineering than I think Congress could manage, but if you stuck to that model you could do it. But Congress won't, they'll make exceptions for this group and that group, and require we not use the list to discriminate against another group (goals mind you, not quotas) and what they would pass would be an unworkable mishmash that would require legions of lawyers to litigate. Best to hope it dies in committee.
Oh, and yes, I'll add this to the list of reasons I'll never vote for McCain.
Kill the bill.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
... the differences in small business requirements, I own one.
However, it seems to me that the nature of this bill places and undue burden on a particular class of Internet user --- users, not businesses as most blogs are probably not businesses under any interpretation of local/state/federal laws. For example, I seriously doubt that very many blog operators are required to have local "occupational licenses" (i.e. another way for local government to get their hands in your wallet :-)
So I don't see where the varying interpretation of "business laws" would apply to allow one to make the distinction. And I can envision how this bill could have further unintended consequences by defining certain behavior; requirements that could later be used by local/state/federal government to try to apply other business laws to the operator thus turning every blog into a business --- a business that owes local taxes, etc.
I agree with friend becker, kill the d*mn thing before it catches its first breath.
John
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Ethnic humor is part of human nature. The Dutch tell Belgian jokes. The Belgians tell French jokes. The French tell English jokes. The English tell Irish jokes. The Irish tell Irish jokes.
The original report was on CNET and Glenn followed up on it. McCain's office responded to Glenn...
The McCain people were upset enough with this report that they emailed me about it, and I talked with a guy from McCain's office named Pablo Chavez. Chavez says that this misstates what the bill does: In fact, there's no obligation to monitor or discover child porn, just to report it if you become aware of it. And the bill is, he says, aimed at "the MySpaces of the world," not individual bloggers.I've given the bill a quick read -- text here -- and it doesn't seem entirely clear to me that it doesn't reach individual bloggers, regardless of intent. Chavez says that McCain only wants to get hard-core child pornography, and has no desire to do anything that might reduce free speech on the Internet. He also says that McCain is open to amendments that would alleviate any concerns that bloggers might have. Perhaps people should propose some?
UPDATE: Email from InstaPundit readers is universally mistrustful of McCain, which is indicative of just how much damage he's done himself with his support of campaign finance "reform."
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
But if that's the case, why introduce the bill at all? It really does look like he just wants to have the hit in South Carolina.
Can't speak for other SCians, but my opinion of McCain is as low as those of many others here. He was a great war hero, but is a terrible Senator. He did lose the primary here last time he ran. And Lindsey Mini-Me hurts himself more than he helps McCain.
Retire Lindsey Graham. Support Thomas Ravenel for Senate 2008
I doubt someone who's been a Senator as long as McCain - or who has legions of staffers - would not know what the bill meant. And *also* that it has the proverbial snowball's chance of passing.
My guess is that it's a stunt designed to make McCain look like he's trying to legislate decency, and thereby win some needed "Religious Right" votes in the primaries. Someone thinks he (or his candidate) can pull a fast one on the "fundies."
So he's being ham-handed, clueless, and/or haughty. None of which look particularly good for someone who likely has the Oval Office within his reach...
Gimlet
2 parts gin + 1 part lime juice
And just saying "it's not about you, it's about MySpace" just confirms that it IS about us. The difference between MySpace and RS is hardly helped by the bill's language.
This bill has an excellent chance of passing...
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
that McCain thinks we are as stupid as his friends the Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) tell him?
Two thirds of the world is covered by water, the other third is covered by Champ Bailey
the Dems would make sure to put in a craftily phrased clause to protect them. RS on the other hand......
Let's work to kill it in committee.
Every single time, every time I start to think that maybe I could support McCain, that maybe he wouldn't be so bad as President, and then he goes and pulls some stunt like this. Thank goodness McCain doesn't have the good sense not to keep unloading his clip into his foot.
The saddest part to this is that I actually think it will have no problem passing. It'll be tough to be coined a guy who "voted against stopping child pornography". This bill also makes great headlines for the average parent who doesn't delve into or completely understand the consequences.
Just like 0 Senators stood up for federalism and voted against forcing .08 BAC on every state. They wouldn't want to be accused of being in favor of a kid on his bike riding to school in the morning being run over by a blitzed driver who've been drinking tequila all night.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
"Democracy simply doesn't work."
This is why we need to repeal the 17th amendment and in fact prohibit the direct election of Senators.
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Run like Reagan!
Another example of how McCain could care less about the Constitution. If someone cannot accept at least some of the Constitution, they should be considered too dangerous for the office.
....but what do you expect from a guy that thinks his idiotic campaign finance legislation is more important than the 1st ammendment.
Once again, I will restate my deeply held belief that McCain is the most dangerous man in America.
McCain is considered to be a top tier candidate for the Republican nomination. This is a guy who has a good military record, 30 years ago, and since then, heh. He did nothing as a Representative, and until this decade his claim to fame as a Senator was being part of the Keating Five. He groveled his way out of that one.
He has no experience as an executive. None. His signature legislation would have to CFR. Then there's torture. Then there's the G14. Then there's his opposition to tax cuts. His Senate career is about as lackluster as John Kerry's. Yet he's a top tier candidate.
McCain has the unique ability to take penny ante issues and present them in a way that opposing him is opposing motherhood and apple pie. He is Teflon given his performance as a Senator.
A word of warning, do not take McCain lightly. You do so at our peril.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
the bureaucracy, that's when it would really get interesting.
Some grade level 10 holding your life in his hands, the only thing between you and fines, ignominy, and God knows what else, being his sloth, plans for vacation, the pretty chick at the next desk, and tabulating his benefits and retirement.
The only good thing about a McCain presidency would be his explosions at the White House press corp,sure to happen sometimes. Not enough reason to vote for a guy who follows the political winds like a bloodhound chasing a convict.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Senator McCain, not content simply to arrest the man who yells "Fire!" in a crowded theater, now wants to arrest the theater manager who let him in the building.
Dana
Common Sense Political Thought