Gordon Crovitz: Free Speech, Now that Speech Is Free
[Gordon Crovitz is a media and information industry advisor and executive, including former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, executive vice president of Dow Jones and president of its Consumer Media Group.]
The equivalent of the health-care debate a few years ago was the battle over the McCain-Feingold law, which was supposed to be the most important political reform in a generation. Instead, technology has already made this law outdated.
McCain-Feingold, passed in 2002, limited spending on political advocacy by corporations and unions. In the era of YouTube and Facebook, the notion that anyone or any institution can dominate political debate is quaint at best.
After last week's Supreme Court argument, key parts of McCain-Feingold seem likely to be overturned. The justices are legal experts, not technologists, but in protecting constitutional rights, they know they are operating in a very different information environment than existed earlier in the decade.
Lively political debate is supposed to benefit everyone—with the occasional exception of incumbent officeholders who are not re-elected. But McCain-Feingold banned the broadcast or transmission by cable or satellite of "electioneering communications" paid for by corporations in the 30 days before a presidential primary or 60 days before the general election. This always raised a First Amendment issue.
The issue now goes deeper: How can any regulation based on an assumption of information scarcity be justified in an era of information abundance?...
... Whatever the arguments for blocking direct contributions by corporations and unions, McCain-Feingold goes beyond this and directly limits First Amendment speech. The Constitution doesn't promise "equal" speech, just the freedom to speak.
Technology now makes it possible for everyone to share their views, so why shouldn't companies and unions be able to make political arguments? Companies and their shareholders are on all sides of issues, depending on who benefits from which government policy, from health-care rules to environmental regulations to industry bailouts.
The likely demise of McCain-Feingold echoes the fate of the Fairness Doctrine. The Federal Communications Commission in 1949 required holders of broadcast licenses to present all sides of controversial topics. There were few broadcast outlets and at least arguably a risk of one-sided debates. The rule was abolished in 1987 as channels grew. With hundreds of cable channels and endless uploads of videos to the Web, it would be impossible to enforce "fairness" even if bureaucrats could track how much of which views were being expressed....
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
The equivalent of the health-care debate a few years ago was the battle over the McCain-Feingold law, which was supposed to be the most important political reform in a generation. Instead, technology has already made this law outdated.
McCain-Feingold, passed in 2002, limited spending on political advocacy by corporations and unions. In the era of YouTube and Facebook, the notion that anyone or any institution can dominate political debate is quaint at best.
After last week's Supreme Court argument, key parts of McCain-Feingold seem likely to be overturned. The justices are legal experts, not technologists, but in protecting constitutional rights, they know they are operating in a very different information environment than existed earlier in the decade.
Lively political debate is supposed to benefit everyone—with the occasional exception of incumbent officeholders who are not re-elected. But McCain-Feingold banned the broadcast or transmission by cable or satellite of "electioneering communications" paid for by corporations in the 30 days before a presidential primary or 60 days before the general election. This always raised a First Amendment issue.
The issue now goes deeper: How can any regulation based on an assumption of information scarcity be justified in an era of information abundance?...
... Whatever the arguments for blocking direct contributions by corporations and unions, McCain-Feingold goes beyond this and directly limits First Amendment speech. The Constitution doesn't promise "equal" speech, just the freedom to speak.
Technology now makes it possible for everyone to share their views, so why shouldn't companies and unions be able to make political arguments? Companies and their shareholders are on all sides of issues, depending on who benefits from which government policy, from health-care rules to environmental regulations to industry bailouts.
The likely demise of McCain-Feingold echoes the fate of the Fairness Doctrine. The Federal Communications Commission in 1949 required holders of broadcast licenses to present all sides of controversial topics. There were few broadcast outlets and at least arguably a risk of one-sided debates. The rule was abolished in 1987 as channels grew. With hundreds of cable channels and endless uploads of videos to the Web, it would be impossible to enforce "fairness" even if bureaucrats could track how much of which views were being expressed....