Is a Domestic Business Corporation such as Mandate Media Inc. (registry number 259423-92, via filinginoregon.com), the host of BlueOregon, really a CITIZEN blog?

The proposed bill (S. 1, Section 220) used a dividing line based on the number of readers. The core free speech issues posed by the legislation are not identical for individual citizens versus any incorporated entity.

I think that it would be inappropriate for the non-citizen speakers, via the internet, to drape themselves in the same dress as that of a humble citizen, by the clumsy lumping of all under the word blog or grassroots.

I could easily support an as-applied challenge to the suspect legislation where the plaintiff is a citizen, and where the reach is characterized as overbroad, and invalid as to a citizen's speech via their internet site. (I do not think that the word "blog" should even give rise to a vagueness claim, as that would be rendered irrelevant as between incorporated media, such as between The O and Mandate Media where both have an internet presence.)

Imagine that the Oregon Legislature modified the PAC transparency laws, where news media is exempted provided that editorials are not tied to advertising dollars (a hoot all it's own), to exempt all blogs (citizen and non-citizen) from the disclosure of the costs for speech via blogs. Would this exemption from disclosure, so long as it also exempted non-citizen speech, just work a further harm to citizen speech vis-a-vis the non-citizen speakers such as The O and MandateMedia today?

I am all in favor of uniform application of limits already on the books. I would demand that the exemption from PAC reporting for corporate media like MandateMedia and The O be eliminated, so long as individual citizens are compelled to form PAC's to effectively seek redress of grievances via the initiative process, or for any compulsory formation by citizens of a PAC as a precondition to speak.

I would insist too that so long as any citizen does not seek any tax deduction for political speech, in any form, that it is none of the business of other citizens (via government power) to do a damn thing other than speak for themselves in their chosen media, on similar terms.

If Kari could claim a business loss against his personal income then I could surely claim that I had the requisite number of readers to obtain standing to address the citizen non-citizen issue that I find so objectionable, particularly in light of the unequivocal arbitrariness of the use of government power over citizen speech.

Why are non-citizens treated differently?

Don't forget that the federal executive branch could do all sorts of spying to measure blogger traffic (etc.) under the guise of it's necessary and proper clause authority to enforce the otherwise valid restrictions.

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"It's not just the Democrats we have to keep our eyes on. It's the whole lot of 'em in Congress."

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UPDATE From Comment On Slashdot.org on the grassroots topic:

"We really went wrong when we (or the SCOTUS, really) decided that corporations had "rights" just as if they were real people. Really big, rich, immortal people. Most of our campaign finance problems could be curbed if we overturned that finding. Make the government accountable to natural persons only. Sure, the rich would still have an advantage over the poor, but at least we'd control the inhuman sociopaths that we call corporations."

Except that SCOTUS would have no occasion to acknowledge any rights to any corporation, or at least as far as I am concerned "limits to personal liability," if a state did not extend such a privilege. The SCOTUS does not compel the passage of state legislation to extend the privilege of limited liability.