Taking First Amendment battle online

Last Wednesday, the US Supreme Court upheld the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, which deliberately trims citizens' First Amendment rights. Among other things, the law limits the ability of groups like the National Rifle Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the like to broadcast radio and TV ads in the run-up to a federal election.

The court said that such ads, paid for by big corporate contributions, could distort the political process. You bet: They might actually cause voters to throw the bums out, and we can't have that.

"Whatever you think about the First Amendment, this is pure incumbent protection," griped Joel Gora, associate dean of the Brooklyn Law School, who represented the ACLU in its failed effort to have the law ruled unconstitutional.

But the reformers weren't paying attention to the Internet when they drafted their bill. There's nothing in McCain-Feingold about restricting the use of the Web, or e-mail, or streaming audio and video. Which means that we're about to enter the golden age of Internet politics, as millions in cash that can no longer be spent on TV and radio ads will make its way online.

"This is bound to spur development of the Internet, not only as a fund-raising tool but as a way of getting candidates' messages out," said John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Already, political pundits and Internet mavens alike have hailed Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, whose grass-roots Net campaign has transformed him from an obscure New England governor to the party's probable candidate in 2004.

Now the political pressure groups being forced off the airwaves by McCain-Feingold are getting set to leverage the Net like never before. The NRA already runs a daily video broadcast on gun-control issues at www.nralive.com. The group's chief, Wayne LaPierre, said this is just the beginning.

"We're going to do full-scale news programming on the Internet," he said, as a counterweight to mainstream news broadcasts that LaPierre regards as "antigun." While such a broadcast won't draw nearly the audience of a network news show, it could still attract plenty of eyeballs. According to the ratings company Arbitron Inc., 50 million of us viewed some kind of video on the Net in August.

The NRA isn't giving up on TV ads. The group plans ads that will get out its message and rouse opposition to McCain-Feingold at the same time. The TV spots will state that federal law prevents the NRA from saying certain things about certain candidates, and will urge viewers to visit the NRA website for details. LaPierre hopes the ads will not only keep the NRA's issues before the public, but also spawn a backlash against McCain-Feingold among censorship-hating Americans.

The NRA's guerrilla media tactics are just the beginning. Consider the potential of Internet radio. Millions of Net users already tune in to audio services like Live365. Political lobbying groups could take advantage by creating their own Internet radio stations. They wouldn't run nonstop political ads. Who'd listen?

Instead, they'd run music, news, or talk, interspersed with pitches for their cause. The NRA could do a country and western channel, playing Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks tunes, mingled with scathing attacks on antigun candidates. The ACLU could mix alternative rock tunes with denunciations of anti-abortion candidates.

Some shrewd politician could set up five or six different channels, each offering programming aimed at a different pool of voters. And none of it would come within reach of McCain-Feingold.

Not yet, anyway. Don Simon is general counsel for Common Cause, a political reform group that backs McCain-Feingold. Simon isn't sure whether McCain-Feingold's advertising limits should apply to the Internet, but he's open to the idea.

"Should the Internet become a loophole to undermine the federal laws meant to protect the integrity of the electoral process?" he mused. Indeed, critics say there's nothing to stop its being applied to the Net.

"Maybe if Congress cited a couple of examples where people used the Internet to say people should write their congressmen, [the High Court] might say, `Yeah, we've got to regulate that,' " said the ACLU's Gora.

Samples of the Cato Institute agrees the Net is the next target of the reformers.

"If it's used against incumbent members of Congress, and it's effective, they're not going to leave the Internet alone," he said.

Still, it might be for the best. Elections must not be tainted by corrupting influences like information. The Supreme Court says so.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.