Politech: Reason article looks at campaign finance history, warns of blog crackdown [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.reason.com/hod/js030805.shtml

March 8, 2005

Bloggers Beware
Threats to the status quo are always ripe for "reform"
John Samples

[...]

History should give pause to those concerned about liberty on the 
Internet. New technology that threatens the political status quo quickly 
attracts Congressional regulation and restrictions.
Take the history of television in American politics. In 1968, three 
candidates—Eugene McCarthy, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon—challenged 
the entrenched status quo by spending large sums of money on television 
advertising. McCarthy's spending drove the incumbent president Lyndon 
Johnson out of office. Wallace's TV strategy brought him 14 percent of 
the vote and may have denied Democrats the presidency. Richard Nixon's 
lavish spending on television helped him narrowly take the presidency 
from Hubert Humphrey.
In 1968, uncontrolled political spending on a new technology threatened 
the political status quo.
Congress acted swiftly to meet the threat. In the spring of 1969, 
members introduced a bill to limit campaign spending on television 
advertising. The bill became law in 1971 and went into effect the 
following year. Congress had, in the words of one member, "tamed the 
television monster." Yet the "monster" in question was a threat only to 
those who held power.
[...]
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