Strangling Speech on the Internet

Get ready, O my brethren, for the first stumbling steps of the government toward stifling political speech on the Internet. Read this in today's NYTimes. Note that it's a Democratic member of the Federal Elections Commission who's advising calm while hinting that a crack-down is on the way: "People should not be alarmed," said Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democratic FEC commissioner. "Given the impact of the Internet, I think we have to take a look at whether there are aspects of that that ought to be subject to the regulations. But again, I don't want this issue to get overblown. Because I really don't think, at the end of the day, this commission is going to do anything that affects what somebody sitting at home, on their home computer, does."

Yeah? So why go there? Why start making noise about assessing active political bloggers and e-mail list maintainers as being covered by McCain-Feingold?

It's a Republican Commissioner (bless his heart!) who's been sounding his own alarm about this step in the wrong direction: "Anyone who decides to 'set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet' could be subject to Federal Election Commission regulation, Bradley A. Smith, a Republican commissioner, said."

We've thought all along that the freedom of the Web would eventually attract the baleful eye of power. But we've also always thought that American ingenuity would figger a way around whatever censorship the government decides to experiment with. We just hate the coming hassle.