Want to Blog About the Referendum - Register with the Government First

note: cross-posted at the e-group

I recently received a comment which suggested that I might be breaking the law by writing this blog without first registering with the government. In response, I emailed elections BC to see if this was indeed the case.

I (foolishly, as it turns out) expected to get a reply indicating that no, the law on referendum advertising was not intended to apply to people who were just expressing their personal opinion on the internet without funding from anyone, but in fact I received this reply:

"Thank you for your inquiry. According to the Election Act, anyone promoting or opposing a particular response in voting in the upcoming referendum must register as a referendum advertising sponsor. The referendum campaign period began on March 1, 2005 and continues until 8:00 p.m. Pacific time, May 17, 2005. As your Web page has been accessible to the public during this period, it is imperative that you register with Elections BC as soon as possible."

There was a little more back and forth in which I explained why I thought that they should consider the matter further (which they did after asking me to forward the url for my site) and which ended with this explanation from elections BC:

"Thank you for sending me the link to your Web site. I have taken a close look at the site, and I feel that it constitutes referendum advertising. While there are links to various "No" sites, I feel that overall, the Web site clearly promotes a certain response to voting in the referendum. Regarding your individual blogs and postings on other Web sites, I feel that given their editorial nature, they do not constitute referendum advertising and do not require authorization statements.

Rapidly evolving technologies and the internet create challenges in determining political commentary vs. political advertising. However, Web sites created for promoting, directly or indirectly, a specific response in voting in the referendum do, in Elections BC's view, clearly constitute referendum advertising. Persons or organizations who create these sites must register as referendum advertising sponsors if the sites are accessible during the referendum campaign period. This approach is consistent with political party and candidate sites, which are a form of election
advertising during an election campaign period.

We fully recognize that not all Web sites that express an opinion on the referendum are engaged in referendum advertising. Individuals' blogs, that were not established or created for the purpose of conducting referendum advertising or promoting a specific response in voting, would not generally be considered referendum advertising. However, with rapidly emerging technologies each situation must be reviewed and determined on its own merit, and a blog could, conceivably, be created as an effective advertising method."

A similar back and forth exchange as well as some good analysis of the legalities can be found at David Schreck's site. A google search for 'Vote no STV' will bring up Schreck's site as one of the first hits, but he is not required to register his site because it existed before the referendum campaign and it is not devoted solely to encouraging people to vote against STV (he also encourages people to vote NDP).

Anyway, I have been debating whether or not to comply with elections BC's request. As one person who I asked succinctly said,

"It all depends on whether you're fighting the good fight against an unjust law that egregiously curtails your rights or if you're just childishly bucking the bureaucrats."

On the one hand, registration is free and while I would prefer not to have my name, phone number and address prominently posted on the internet, it is not a huge infringement on me. Still, for those who supported the right of bloggers to remain anonymous in recent discussion on the e-group, it's worth noting that under this type of legislation your anonymity would be threatened. For example, if the federal legislation were amended to follow BC's example, anyone classifying themselves as a 'blogging Tory' might have to register with the government (while other sites which were just as partisan but not as clearly identified as such would presumably be exempt).

It seems odd to me that someone can spend their day preaching in the park about voting yes, writing letters to the paper on why to vote yes, writing a vote-yes editorial in the paper and appearing on the radio and on television explaining why to vote yes but only when they get home and decide to start a blog/website explaining why people should vote yes are they forced to register. Especially when they could post all the same stuff on their existing blog and not have to register!

Finally, while elections BC is (currently) interpreting the law to only apply to blogs specifically created to argue one side of the referendum, I see nothing in the law itself which really supports this distinction. Which in turn means that this interpretation could (theoretically) change at any time and anyone who posts a comment anywhere on the internet for or against the referendum would suddenly be in violation of the law. The elections BC advertising 'Q&A' specifically states that even material published before the referendum period starts is considered advertising if it is 'available' (i.e. online) during the referendum period.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that, while I am flattered that elections BC would consider the completely unfunded expression of my opinion to be so influential that the public interest requires that I register with the government before expressing it, it feels like an unreasonable intrusion into my right to freedom of speech.

Notwithstanding this, I have decided I don't feel strongly enough about it to pick this battle and accordingly I have placed my site 'under the sponsorship of' the yes campaign for whatever that's worth, but I'm still torn over the wisdom of this decision.

Is this an unjust law worth fighting? Is it a threat to bloggers in general and their anonymity in particular? Is it one step on a road to ever tighter government control over the internet? Am I making a big deal over nothing?