Well, the Cloaca Maxima of the internet has proved itself good for something. The Daily Kos has been ruled to be a media outlet not subject to FEC regulation, which means that the rest of us bloggers also qualify as journalists.

Bill O’Reilly blasts DailyKos as a “hate site,” but according to a federal ruling released Tuesday, the popular liberal blog is as much a part of the media as Fox News when it comes to campaign finance rules.

The Federal Election Commission unanimously dismissed a complaint filed against DailyKos by a right-wing blogger who had argued it was illegally acting as a political committee by giving support and free advertising to Democratic candidates.

Adam Bonin, the lawyer who represented DailyKos, called the ruling “a big victory, but everything about the rulemaking and the precedent strongly suggested that there was no other logical outcome.”

The ruling is only a small step in the evolution of government regulation of politics on the Web, but expect it to attract attention because of the prominence of Daily Kos.

The complaint alleged that DailyKos should have to register as a political committee since its primary purpose is promoting Democrats and it raised and spent more than $1,000 pursuing that end.

Now what this effectively means is that when bloggers speak, they are not making campaign contributions. That also means that we are free to speak free of government reporting burdens. Had the ruling gone the other way, many bloggers would have been forced to quit speaking on political candidates and issues, while others (myself included) would have continued speaking and risked arrest for the crime of engaging in political speech.

Now I will note that the complaint was filed by blogger John Bambenek. It is my hope that it was intended as a test case, not to silence a political opponent.

Posted by: Greg at 12:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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