-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Campaign Finance
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:10:01 -0500
From: Jim DeLong <jdelong@private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
The following para is from a blog I posted on March 25. Would you
consider sharing it with your list? I think it an important point that
is not receiving attention.
03.25.2005 (previous | next)
http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2005/03/mission_creep_c.html
Mission Creep: Campaign Finance Law & the Internet
I am bemused by the ease with which the political system and the courts
have sneakily recast the reformist mission. The original rationale of
campaign finance laws was the need to alleviate the corrupting influence
of large-scale expenditures. This has transmogrified into a view that
any expenditure of money, however trivial, is a jurisdictional hook that
allows -- indeed, compels -- the FEC to limit political speech.
And behind this constitutional travesty is the corrupting influence of
large-scale expenditures by tendentious foundations
[http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050322-091242-2078r.htm], which are,
like their academic doppelgangers
[http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2005/03/the_coming_refo.html],
opposed to market society.
James V. DeLong
Senior Fellow & Director -- Center for the
Study of Digital Property
Progress & Freedom Foundation
1401 H St., NW -- Suite 1075
Washington, DC 20005
202-289-8928
jdelong@private
www.IPcentral.Info
www.pff.org
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