The Political Revolution That Almost Wasn't Digitized

Nov. 26, 2008— -- During this election cycle, the political process finally found the digital alchemy that married impact activism with Internet innovation. We've seen "Citizen 2.0" take "Web 2.0" and fashion "Election 2.0" into an engine of personal democracy; this revolution wasn't televised, it was digitized. And it almost didn't happen.

Just four years ago, a federal court ordered the Federal Election Commission to write a new set of rules addressing political activity in cyberspace. The 2004 presidential election cycle saw a flourishing of online political activities, and the commission had no guidelines on how to treat such activity vis-à-vis campaign finance rules.

Some lawmakers and advocates clamored for rules to govern online political speech, and a court in Washington backed them up, requiring the FEC to move forward with a notice of proposed rulemaking to impose campaign finance rules on the Internet.

In a first draft written by FEC staff, the agency started down a problematic path by suggesting a host of rules that would have subjected even the most banal online political speech to a myriad of campaign finance reporting and federal recordkeeping.

Every link from a citizen's own site Web site to that of a candidate would have triggered potential campaign finance regulations and swept many bloggers into the purview of the law. Ordinary citizens might have been compelled to consult lawyers before they engaged in online political activity.

The situation prompted a stark question: Would the Internet be allowed to foster a new era of citizen political activity through openness and innovation, or would it be turned into a chilling regulatory minefield, subject to arcane and ill-fitting finance laws?

Flexing its newly found online political muscle, the blogosphere came alive and a coalition was formed using the Internet as an organizing tool. My organization, the Center for Democracy and Technology, helped lead an online campaign that urged the FEC to protect individuals' online political speech from burdensome regulation.

Although we sought to protect blogs as much as possible, we also reached farther to protect all political speech by individuals, whether in blogs, video, e-mail or any other electronic form. The FEC paid attention and backed away from harsh mandates in favor of narrow rules that left most citizen-initiated online political activities open, innovative and free from regulation.