Tag: bloggers

Categories
First Amendment rights

Register the Critics!

Florida, censorship, blogging, license

Joy Reid cited it as just another example of “right-​wing fantasy,” and Newt Gingrich had, if anything, worse things to say about it.

What is it?

A proposed Florida law advanced by State Senator Jason Brodeur (R‑Lake Mary).

Senate Bill 1316 “would require bloggers to register with the state within five days of any post mentioning a state official, according to Florida Politics,” a Newsweek article explains. “It would then require bloggers to file monthly reports listing posts that mention officials, as well as any compensation for those posts.”

The legislation, which has not advanced far — and probably won’t — has received mostly negative responses. Former Speaker of the House Gingrich’s is typical: “The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. [I]t is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately.”

Promoters of the law defended it mainly by saying that Ginrich’s criticism mischaracterized the law. Not all political bloggers would have to register, only those paid to write would be. Only!

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office.…”

Former FEC Commissioner Brad Smith challenged the notion itself: “Would you apply this to journalists? Citizen who write letters to their representatives? People who talk to their neighbors? Why not? No, you don’t have a right to know who is paying them. You have a right to ignore them if that matters to you.”

Since the world began, politicians have had a very difficult time ignoring their critics. Instead, like this Florida Senator, they want to shut them up. By force. By intimidation. By regulatory harassment.

The First Amendment says NO.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
First Amendment rights judiciary

The Truth-​Telling Defense

In these United States, must you pay $60,000 for the “crime” of publicly telling the truth about someone?

What if you’re a mere blogger rather than a network news anchor?

Back in March of last year, a jury decided that Minneapolis blogger John Hoff must pay $35,000 for lost wages plus $25,000 for emotional distress to Jerry Moore because Hoff had blogged, in 2009, that Moore was involved in mortgage fraud. After Hoff’s post hit the cyberwaves, Moore was booted from the University of Minnesota.

The jury did not find that Hoff had libeled Moore. Instead, Hoff had supposedly committed “tortious interference” with Moore’s employment, presumably by giving the university information that it found convincing and relevant. (Hoff didn’t fire Moore. The university did.)

Luckily, this verdict, though horrific, didn’t provide the final word. The Minnesota Court of Appeals has just overturned it, arguing, in part: “Because truth is an absolute defense to a claim for defamation, truth should also be a defense to a claim for tortious interference with a contract arising out of an allegedly defamatory statement.”

Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy judges the case a “big victory for free speech.” Apparently, the First Amendment can take a licking and keep on ticking.

It’s unfortunate, however, that this truth had to be affirmed at the cost of three years of time, trouble and anxiety for Mr. Hoff.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy

Philly Bloggers Beware

Do you live in Philadelphia? Do you blog? Have you earned a penny or more from your blog page? Then don’t click away!

Stick around a minute even if you blog in some other town, because today’s installment is about the lengths to which tax mongers might go to mulct or muzzle you.

The Philadelphia government has begun sending letters demanding dough to bloggers who report even trivial revenue from their blogs. The city wants $300 for “business privilege” licenses. Marilyn Bess is one recipient. Her blog MsPhilly Organic earned about $50 over the last few years.

Sean Barry also got the city’s letter. His own blog, Circle of Fits, has been deluged with some $11 in revenue over the last couple of years. He, too, had dutifully reported the blog-​generated boodle on his tax returns.

What did these electron-​stained opinion-​purveyors do to deserve this special attention? Nothing but fail to read every last jot of the city’s tax code — and every last secret inter-​department city government memo about when to go after local bloggers — before setting fingers to keys.

Philadelphia’s pursuit of imaginary scofflaws may amount to just an obtuse lunge for hitherto unextracted funds. But the new protocol is also a weapon that could be selectively deployed, now or later, to harass bloggers who publish inconvenient words. Wouldn’t be the first time in our history that the power to tax has been turned to such ends.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense

You Picked on the Wrong Guys

Blazing trails can be fun and exciting. But sooner or later, along come the folks who want to put a damper on things. Regulate you. Even threaten you.

So it is with the wide open spaces of the Internet, where people go to speak their minds.

A website about New York politics called Room 8 received a subpoena from Bronx prosecutors, trying to force the publishers to help identify persons blogging at the site anonymously.

Such an attempt might be reasonable. Maybe it could help catch some criminal. As Ben Smith, a co-​founder of Room 8, puts it, “Was somebody found face-​down on their keyboard and the I.P. address was going to help identify the killer?”

Smith called the district attorney’s office to try to get more information. None was given. Not only that, the subpoena spoke ominously about how disclosure of the “very existence” of the subpoena would “impede the investigation.” Obstructing an investigation … can’t that can get you thrown in jail yourself?

Scary stuff.

If governments get away with such tactics, bloggers would be prevented from exercising their most potent weapon to fight injustice: anonymity. Anonymous writing helped foment the American Revolution. Letting governments, today, suppress such free speech amounts to a repudiation of this American idea.

The founders of Room 8 got themselves some lawyers. The subpoena, fortunately, has been withdrawn. Still no word on what the crime was.

Maybe speaking out of turn?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.