C|Net has an article today about the FEC's coming decision to start regulating bloggers when they write about politics; specifically, the argument goes that a link within a blog to a candidate's website should count as some sort of in-kind donation. Apparently bloggers don't count as the press; on the other hand, if you don't link to a candidate's campaign site, presumably you're in the clear.
I suppose the fact of the regulation isn't what bothers me as much as the idea that someone somewhere in the FEC is going to be spending government money trying to find every instance of a blogger's linking to a campaign site, and then somehow determining the net monetary value of that link, and requiring the campaign to note that donation. This could be interesting if, for example, I link to a comment on the website of a candidate with whom I disagree. Something smells here.
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