WASHINGTON -- The Montana Supreme Court has put itself on a collision course with the U.S. Supreme Court by upholding a century-old state law that bans corporate spending in state and local political campaigns.

The law, which was passed by Montana voters in 1912 to combat Gilded Age corporate control over much of Montana's government, states that a "corporation may not make ... an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political party that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party." In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, struck down a similar federal statute, holding that independent electoral spending by corporations "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" that such laws were enacted to combat.

That reasoning -- described by the Citizens United dissenters as a "crabbed view of corruption" -- compelled 23 of the 24 states with independent spending bans to stop enforcing their restrictions, according to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Helena, Mont.-based National Institute on Money in State Politics. Montana, however, stood by its 1912 law, which led several corporations to challenge it as unconstitutional.

By a 5-2 vote this past Friday, the Montana Supreme Court declined to recognize the common understanding that Citizens United bars all laws limiting independent electoral spending. Instead, Chief Justice Mike McGrath, writing on behalf of the majority, called on the history surrounding the state law to show that corporate money, even if not directly contributed to a campaign, can give rise to corruption.

McGrath's opinion in Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General harkens back to the turn of the 20th century, when Montana's "Copper Kings" -- the natural resource-rich state's version of the robber barons -- competed "for political and economic domination" so effectively that by the time the Montana voters banned corporate spending in a voter initiative, "the State of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority." One such Copper King, wrote Mark Twain in a quotation cited by McGrath, was "said to have bought legislatures and judges as other men buy food and raiment."

Paul S. Ryan, associate legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, characterized the Montana Supreme Court's reliance on factual findings culled from a century of state history, plus the trial testimony from contemporary politicians of both parties, as "an antidote to the crabbed view of corruption" adopted in Citizens United. Nevertheless, most observers, including Ryan, do not anticipate the U.S. Supreme Court accepting that antidote. The ruling in Citizens United that independent spending does not give rise to corruption introduced a categorical rule that no factual reality can overcome as long as the decision's five-justice majority remains on the Court.

To make this point, dissenting state Justice Beth Baker wrote that Montana "made no more compelling a case than that painstakingly presented in the 90-page dissenting opinion of Justice [John Paul] Stevens and emphatically rejected by the majority in Citizens United."

And state Justice James Nelson, also dissenting, put the point more bluntly. Even while lambasting Citizens United's reasoning as "utter nonsense" and "smoke and mirrors," among other insults, he found himself duty-bound to defer to the decision of the highest court in the land. "The Supreme Court in Citizens United rejected several asserted governmental interests," wrote Nelson, "and this Court has now come along, retrieved those interests from the garbage can, dusted them off, slapped a 'Made in Montana' sticker on them, and held them up as grounds for sustaining a patently unconstitutional state statute."

Nelson wrote that it "would not surprise me in the least" if the U.S. Supreme Court reversed his court's decision without even asking for briefs or oral argument from the opposing parties.

To reverse the Montana Supreme Court, however, the justices would have to extract themselves from a quandary of their own making, noted professor Rick Hasen of the University of California-Irvine Law School on his popular Election Law Blog. "If the Court were being honest in Citizens United," Hasen wrote, "it would have said something like: We don't care whether or not independent spending can or cannot corrupt; the First Amendment trumps this risk of corruption."

But by "dress[ing] up its value judgment ... as a factual statement," continued Hasen, the U.S. Supreme Court must now explain why the Montana Supreme Court was not correct to consider the factual record when it came to justifying corporate spending limits in campaign finance laws.

Amid significant pressure from tens of thousands of internet users and major web behemoths like Google, Facebook, and Reddit, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is, in its current form, Dead on Arrival:

Misguided efforts to combat online privacy have been threatening to stifle innovation, suppress free speech, and even, in some cases, undermine national security. As of yesterday, though, there’s a lot less to worry about.

The first sign that the bills’ prospects were dwindling came Friday, when SOPA sponsors agreed to drop a key provision that would have required service providers to block access to international sites accused of piracy.

The legislation ran into an even more significant problem yesterday when the White House announced its opposition to the bills. Though the administration’s chief technology officials officials acknowledged the problem of online privacy, the White House statement presented a fairly detailed critique of the measures and concluded, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” It added that any proposed legislation “must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet.”

…

Though the administration did issue a formal veto threat, the White House’s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form.

A few hours later, Congress shelved SOPA, putting off action on the bill indefinitely.

Sourced From Washington Monthly via The Daily Sheeple

Sponsored primarily by purported free speech advocates that include democrats and republicans alike, the SOPA would have fundamentally transformed the internet as we know it today. As Daisy Luther writes at Inalienably Yours, the bill was nothing short of a direct attack against the first Amendment and the right to free speech:

On closer inspection, the legalese in the bill has the potential to eviscerate free speech….and like NDAA, without proof…only with suspicion of “wrong-doing”. It’s all about copyright infringement. If you tick off the powers that be, and you’ve quoted someone, somewhere, saying something, you may have infringed on their copyright. As a defendant, you are not even present at the legal proceeding allowing “them” to shut you down until you prove yourself innocent.

How do they shut you down? Search engines are required to remove you from their listings. Internet Service Providers can be ordered to block access to your site. Advertising networks and payment providers can also be forced to cease doing business with you. This continues until you are proven INNOCENT. Wait – I thought it was innocent until proven guilty….oh….that was “before” the NDAA.

Source: The Internet: The Last Bastion of Free Speech

While this bill of goods was being sold to the American public as a way to reduce online piracy originating on foreign shores, in essence the legislation would have made it possible for any organization (with the financial assets and access to attorneys to do so) to target web sites (foreign or domestic) using excerpts, quotes, and videos without express permission of the authors or producers of such content. Furthermore, any web site linking to suspected copyrighted content would be guilty by association for fascilitating the infringement.

By linking to and excerpting Daisy’s article above, for example, this particular web site, and anyone who republishes this article, excerpts it, or pulls a link from it, could be shut down on the service provider level until such time they prove their innocence. (*Note to DHS, et. al.: Daisy has given us permission to reprint her article or portions of it, and the excerpt from Washington Monthly has been reprinted under Fair Use to advance understanding of this political and Constitutional issue*)

The scariest part of the legislation, as Daisy points out above, is that due process would have been eliminated (just like in the NDAA), forcing internet providers, search engines and ad networks to simply shut down a web site(s) based on just the complaintant’s accusations, leaving those web site owners who were shut down to deal with the fallout with costly legal expenses and lengthy court battles.

You may recall that in 2010 the government shut down 73,000 web sites in exactly this manner. Though the owners of the majority of the targeted sites were not technically infringing copyrights, some were linking to other sites that did, making them an accessory.

Even more alarming is the ability, under legislation such as SOPA, of the government to control the flow of information across major internet providers. Articles or videos criticizing political figures or policies could easily be targeted, as they were in October of this year when the government moved to shut down rogue publishers of critical content .

What it boils down to is that SOPA was an attempt to put the power of information back in the hands of an elite few who are rapidly losing the ability to control what the masses are reading, hearing and seeing. Alternative news and ‘extremist’ information was the target (and still is).

While we applaud President Obama (yes, we agree with him on this move) for formally issuing a veto threat, we remain skeptical of his motivations. This being an election year, the last thing the President needs to be dealing with along with the economic crisis and tensions in the middle east, is the protests of millions of voters who would have undoubtedly taken to the streets when access to their favorite web sites like Youtube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter were shut down because of alleged SOPA violations.

Moreover, we aren’t one bit convinced that this veto was done in the interests of free expression, as the administration may claim. In November, the President issued a similar veto threat about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows for the detention of American citizens determined to be threats to national security and public safety on the domestic (U.S.) battlefront. He flip-flopped on the issue just a couple of weeks later, and signed the bill into law over New Year’s weekend to complete silence from the mainstream media.

It is our view that SOPA, in one form or another, will return with a vengeance.

(CNN) -- Some lawmakers are rethinking their support of controversial anti-piracy bills that led to some websites shutting down in protest.

The protest was in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill, a piece of proposed legislation that is working its way through Congress. A Senate committee approved a similar bill in May called the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which is now pending before the full Senate.

The protest seemed to change the minds of lawmakers, including those that had strongly backed the bills in the past.

"We can find a solution that will protect lawful content. But this bill is flawed & that's why I'm withdrawing my support. #SOPA #PIPA," Republican Sen. Roy Blunt wrote on his official Twitter page.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who was an initial co-sponsor of PIPA, reversed his position.

Dodd: SOPA will save American jobs

Paramount CEO wants SOPA to pass

Explain it to me: SOPA

"I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet," Rubio wrote on a Facebook post.

Rep Lee Terry (R-Neb.), an original co-sponsor of SOPA, also said he had changed his view.

"Thank you for your concern about #SOPA. I have asked to have my name removed from the bill. However, the economic impact of IP theft is real and a solution is needed," Terry wrote on Facebook.

Wikipedia, one of the websites that shut down on Wednesday, returned Thursday with the message: "Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. We're not done yet."

Clicking on that message takes a Wikipedia viewer to a thank you letter and instructions on how to continue fighting against anti-piracy bills that critics say could amount to censorship.

"Your voice was loud and strong," the message said. "Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet." (Why Wikipedia went down at midnight)

On Wednesday, instead of the usual encyclopedia articles, visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site were greeted by a message about the decision to black out its Web page for an entire day. However, users were able to access its mobile site on some smartphones.

Boing Boing, a blog that took part in Wednesday's online protest but returned on Thursday, said the U.S. Senate was considering legislation that would "certainly kill us forever. The legislation ... would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement."

"In the past, the media industry has often gone after particular infringers -- people who have downloaded stuff off the Internet and sharing it. And now they're going after websites that link to these things," Rob Beschizza, Boing Boing's managing editor, said Wednesday. "The bill is supposed to let copyright holders get court orders against them, and there's all sorts of various measures for getting sites blacklisted or blocked.

"The problem is that the measures are so wide-ranging and so open to abuse that we're worried that sites like ours could be brought down by frivolous claims," he said.

SOPA legislation 'far too overreaching'

Battle over anti-piracy legislation

Wikipedia founder: SOPA bad for Internet

While not blacking out its home page, search giant Google joined the cause by covering its famous logo with a black rectangle and urging visitors, "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!"

SOPA's supporters -- including CNN's parent company, Time Warner, and groups such as the MPAA -- say that online piracy leads to U.S. job losses because it deprives content creators of income.

The bill's supporters dismiss accusations of censorship, saying the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn't adequately prevent criminal behavior.

But SOPA critics say the bill's backers don't understand the Internet's architecture, and therefore don't appreciate the implications of the legislation they're considering.

The controversy over SOPA and PIPA has turned into an all-out war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Media companies have united in favor of the bills, while tech's power players are throwing their might into opposing them. (Hundreds turn out for SOPA protest in New York)

"Both SOPA and PIPA are threats not just to the U.S. economy, and not just to all the jobs that this tech sector creates, but if they had existed, Steve Huffman and I could have never founded Reddit," said Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded the site. Millions visit Reddit to submit interesting links from websites, discuss them and vote on them, he said, calling it "sort of a democratic front page of the web." Reddit also went dark Wednesday morning and was back Thursday.

One member of Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, who opposes the bills, said the unprecedented blackouts had "turned the tide against a backroom lobbying effort by interests that aren't used to being told no."

Issa is pushing for consideration of his own plan, the OPEN Act, addressing the matter. (OPEN Act: An experiment in digital democracy)

A big hurrah to you!!!!! We’ve won for now -- SOPA and PIPA were dropped by Congress today -- the votes we’ve been scrambling to mobilize against have been cancelled.

The largest online protest in history has fundamentally changed the game. You were heard.

On January 18th, 13 million of us took the time to tell Congress to protect free speech rights on the internet. Hundreds of millions, maybe a billion, people all around the world saw what we did on Wednesday. See the amazing numbers here and tell everyone what you did.

This was unprecedented. Your activism may have changed the way people fight for the public interest and basic rights forever.

The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled. “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd told the New York Times. ‘[PIPA and SOPA were] considered by many to be a slam dunk.’”

“'This is altogether a new effect,' Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing 'an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically' in the last four decades, he added."

Tweet with us, shout on the internet with us, let's celebrate: Round of applause to the 13 million people who stood up - #PIPA and #SOPA are tabled 4 now. #13millionapplause

We're indebted to everyone who helped in the beginning of this movement -- you, and all the sites that went out on a limb to protest in November -- Boing Boing and Mozilla Foundation (and thank you Tumblr, 4chan)! And the grassroots groups -- Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Demand Progress, CDT, and many more.

#SOPA and #PIPA will likely return in some form. But when they do, we'll be ready. Can you make a donation to Fight for the Future, to help us keep this fire going?

We changed the game this fall, and we're not gonna stop. $8, $20, every little bit helps.

13 million strong,

Tiffiniy, Holmes, Joshua, Phil, CJ, Donny, Douglas, Nicholas, Dean, David S. and Moore... Fight for the Future!


P.S. China's internet censorship system reminds us why the fight for democratic principles is so important:

In the New Yorker: "Fittingly, perhaps, the discussion has unfolded on Weibo, the Twitter-like micro-blogging site that has a team of censors on staff to trim posts with sensitive political content. That is the arrangement that opponents of the bill have suggested would be required of American sites if they are compelled to police their users’ content for copyright violations. On Weibo, joking about SOPA’s similarities to Chinese censorship was sensitive enough that some posts on the subject were almost certainly deleted (though it can be hard to know).
...
After Chinese Web users got over the strangeness of hearing Americans debate the merits of screening the Web for objectionable content, they marvelled at the American response. Commentator Liu Qingyan wrote:

‘We should learn something from the way these American Internet companies protested against SOPA and PIPA. A free and democratic society depends on every one of us caring about politics and fighting for our rights. We will not achieve it by avoiding talk about politics.’"

#######
(press release is here: https://fightfortheftr.wordpress.com/press-releases/)