Comments on: The Blogger Protection Act of 2008

By: Big Sky Cairn » Blog Archive » MT Democrats shun Project Vote Smart

Big Sky Cairn » Blog Archive » MT Democrats shun Project Vote Smart — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:37:57 +0000

[...] to a 2007 Pew Research Institute Study (cited in Congressman Rehberg’s Op-Ed at MTPolitics), more and more people are using the internet to research where candidates stand on the issues that [...]

By: Big Sky Cairn » Blog Archive » Blogs Get Some Love!

Big Sky Cairn » Blog Archive » Blogs Get Some Love! — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:51:41 +0000

[...] guess we’ll just have to settle for the insignificant opinions of actual Montanans like Congressman Denny Rehberg and Gubernatorial Candidate Roy Brown. Ooooh the sour grapes taste [...]

By: Pragmatic Revolt » Blogs and Comments - an addition

Pragmatic Revolt » Blogs and Comments - an addition — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:11:15 +0000

[...] over at MTpolitics posted a letter from Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg discussing the Blogger Protection Act of 2008. While I will not go into my take on this piece of legislation here, it is a must read if you are a [...]

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:54:06 +0000

In my esteemed non-legal opinion, it sounds more like an issue to take up with Steve Prosinski, not the FEC, though I could certainly be wrong.

By: Ed Kemmick

Ed Kemmick — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:52:02 +0000

What if I’m commenting our your blog on company time? Whoops! There I go again.

By the way, it appears we agree about the meth billboard.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:10:16 +0000

The way I read it, it applies to an individual or corporation that:

…engages primarily in Internet activities and does not derive a substantial portion of its revenue from sources other than income from its Internet activities

I’m no legal eagle, but I think that City Lights would not fall under this act, but if Ed were writing a different blog, on his own time, it would be different.

By: Jim Lang

Jim Lang — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:38:17 +0000

So someone paid by a newspaper to blog would not be covered, correct?

By: Ed Kemmick

Ed Kemmick — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:58:22 +0000

One small point: Rep. Rehberg says 60 million people add up to about 1 in 3 Americans. Doesn’t he mean 1 in 5, since the population is now at about 300 million? Or did he mean 1 in 3 Americans old enough to vote? Don’t sell our country short!

By: Jay Stevens

Jay Stevens — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:00:20 +0000

By the way, that’s just my interpretation of the bill. I’d gladly hear from others on that…

By: Jay Stevens

Jay Stevens — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:59:45 +0000

I have a question: the exemption speaks to “uncompensated bloggers” which is the vast majority of conservative bloggers anyway, but what about those – such as our friends at Left in the West – who are being paid from various sources including their sponsors, advertisers, and apparently other funding sources? How do the campaign finance laws impact them and the candidates they support? Anybody???

That is an excellent question!

I read over the bill, and it looks like all Internet activity that is not paid for is protected. That is, if LiTW links to, say, Jim Hunt’s page and urges folks to donate, that’s cool as long as Hunt doesn’t pay us to write the post.

BTW, LiTW’s income is derived wholly from its ads. We don’t have sponsors or mysterious funders. Although if anyone wanted to mysteriously fund me, I’m available!