Here's the remarks which Markos delivered before the FEC at this morning's first session:
There are couple of points I want to stress in the few minutes I have allotted, and then I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. But I want to provide a quick overview of the political Internet.
It's truly impossible for any one person to truly grasp the scope of internet communication technologies. As I wrote this, off the top of my head, I could think of the following internet communication technologies - blogging, email, instant messaging, message boards, Yahoo Groups, internet relay chat (IRC), chat groups, pod casting, Internet radio, flash animation, web video, web cams, and peer to peer networks like LimeWire and, before yesterday, at least, Grokster. The new Apple operating system has little applications called "widgets" that live on my desktop and get automatically updated via the web. So I get my 5-day weather forecast not from a browser, but from my widget. Microsoft promises much of the same in their next version of Windows.
All of these technologies have political applications, yet they are vastly different. In fact, the only element they all have in common is that they use the Internet to connect people from all reaches of the world. What those people do with the connections is limitless. And collectively, these communication technologies have even less in common with the offline communications that the law was designed to regulate.
It isn't my position that the government should never regulate any Internet communications. It is my position that the Internet is so different than television, radio, and print media, that the current campaign finance regime doesn't fit and different techniques must be employed. It would be like asking me to wear a suit that was designed for an NFL offensive lineman to wear - some serious tailoring is needed.
How are Internet technologies different than their offline media counterparts?
The barriers to entry are ridiculously low. A computer and an Internet connection can turn anyone into a publisher who can speak to a mass audience. Every single one of the communication technologies I mentioned above - the blogging, podcasting, Yahoo Groups, etc - is available to people for free. By comparison, it takes millions to start or buy a newspaper, television station, magazine, or radio station.
And that low barrier to entry ensures that anyone can communicate. It ensures that corporations or labor unions or wealthy individuals have no bigger say than people like me. I am a former war refugee from El Salvador. Didn't speak English when I came to this country. I never had friends in influential places. I wasn't part of an old boy's network. My father, a Greek immigrant, loaded freight in a warehouse. My mother, a Salvadoran immigrant, started off as a secretary. It is rare to see people of such modest backgrounds become media stars. Yet here is a medium that didn't care about things that didn't matter - like class, wealth, influence, or social networks.
I was able to rise to where I am today precisely because of the purely democratic nature of the Internet. And what's more, me being at the top of the blogging world doesn't mean others can't publish their own blogs and some day displace me. It doesn't mean they can't podcast. It doesn't mean they can't create email distribution lists. The "spectrum" is infinite. Anyone who wants a voice can have a voice, and anyone who wants to listen to or read them can do so.
In print, in television, and in radio, the average citizen can only get access if he or she can buy that access. Or if editors and producers, the gatekeepers of the traditional media, provide that access.
Online, there are no gatekeepers. Everyone has a voice.
And what's more - and this is problematic to those who would regulate the medium excessively - the medium allows for true anonymity. In my opinion, the freest of all free speech.
All those free communication services I've been discussing? Anyone can partake in all of those and never reveal his or her identity. If there's a need for something more sophisticated, people seeking to maliciously bypass any regulations can do so by simply setting up shop overseas, outside the reach of the FEC or American law enforcement.
Now that by itself is no reason to avoid legislating or rule making. I wouldn't argue that. But what would happen, practically, is that malicious law breakers could easily avoid trouble by keeping their identity secret. In a heavily regulated political Internet, I would probably not reveal my identity - preferring to use anonymity to shield me not from breaking the law, but to protect me from malicious complaints and the expenses and hassles of complying with the law. Such regulations are fine for political action committees and political campaigns, but for a medium of citizen publishers that creates serious dangers.
And there's the rub. We have a democratic medium that allows anyone to have true freedom of the press. We have average citizens, publishing their thoughts, their research, their journalism, their activism, and encouraging others to do the same. Almost daily on my site, readers exhort each other to engage in some kind of political activity, whether it's phone calls to particular members of Congress, discussions about impending legislation or fundraising to help a favored candidate. This is what democracy should look like - an active, engaged, passionate community working with like-minded individuals around the country and even around the world to make that world a better place. This is what campaign finance reform is supposed to accomplish - placing individuals at the center of our democratic communication, and not large campaign contributors. Obviously, I don't agree with Mike Krempasky here on nearly anything, but fact is, his site engages citizens. And I would like nothing more than a Republican Party that was less beholden to corporations, and more beholden to rank and file conservative citizens. And that's what I want for my party as well.
Those believing they could corrupt the political process through the Internet had every incentive to do so in 2004, and unlimited means at their disposal. But nothing of the sort happened. The free market of ideas policed itself. It worked. So I ask you to do the minimum necessary to comply with the court order, and go no further.
I thank you for your time, and I am happy to answer your questions.