mr. speaker , i thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time .  mr. speaker , i understand the procedural objections to this , and certainly when i made the suggestion during our hearing that we could probably handle this on the suspension , i believed that was the case .  obviously , there is more controversy than i had believed at the time .  but i still believe that this bill is very much worth supporting , and i do support this bill .  if i believed what the new york times and the washington post said , i would indeed be concerned .  i was a strong supporter of the bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002 .  i signed the discharge petition .  i voted for it .  i am glad it passed .  i would note , however , that what the bill before us does today is really a lot more modest than the rhetoric would lead one to believe .  it does not repeal section 441 ( b ) of the act that prohibits contributions or expenditures by national banks , corporations , or labor organizations .  and all of the hoo-rah-rah about soft money and corporate money , i am sure it is sincere , is simply , as a matter of law , incorrect .  what this bill would do would be to allow communications on the internet to avoid the heavy hand of regulation .  and i do believe that is important .  today , if a local candidate has a web page and they decide to say something very positive about the election of their party 's candidate for president , they have a problem under the fec rule .  and if my web site , lofgren for congress , links to feinstein for senate , i probably am violating the rules .  and there is no need for that .  we do not want the heavy regulatory load on the internet , nor do we need to do it .  under current law , unless we pass this exemption , daily chaos , which if they call me for a comment on a candidate and it was run on their daily web site within the specified time , we might have an actual problem here unless they are entitled to the press exemption .  it is not clear that they are .  mr. speaker , i think it is very important since the court was not sure what our intention was when we passed bcra that we should make it clear that the internet is not part of the public communications covered by the act .  i do believe that in coming from silicon valley , especially so , that the ability to use the new technology to promote the viewpoint of individuals is essential to the growth of democracy .  we have seen ever-increasing numbers of people participate in elections .  i think part of the reason for that is the ability to use the internet to communicate .  we are concerned , and rightly so , about the cost of tv .  it costs a huge amount of money to run tv ads .  well , the cost to send an e-mail is almost nothing .  so the use of the internet is a great democratizer ; that is little `` d , '' not big .  we need to make sure that communications using the internet are protected .  mr. speaker , it is worth noting that what this bill will do would be to protect the technology , to protect the internet itself .  it would not reduce in any way the prohibitions found in 441 ( b ) any more than a corporation could use its funds to buy lawn signs or political signs ; they could not pay for ads either .  and so i do think that it is worth noting that for the record i would just like to say that in this case the bloggers have got it right .  this bill will keep the fec out of the business of regulating political speech on the internet .  