Constant Conservative

Hiding one’s tracks in this data-driven age is becoming increasingly difficult. And, while there are more than a few worrisome aspects to this truth, one does find it interesting to follow some forensic footsteps today over at the Jawa Report.

Sarah Palin, as almost everyone should know by now, has been the target of remarkable efforts to portray her as a nutcase, extremist, airheaded, dangerous (well, you pick the negative adjective, it’s probably been used). One of these efforts was using the demonstrably false claim that she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party.

Jawa did some good work, it would seem, to determine that the people behind spreading this particular rumor were well aware of what they were doing, and may indeed have been doing it for hire (or at least were doing it under the “grassroots” umbrella (concerned citizens putting the data together) rather than coming right out and stating that they are members of a PR firm which is very favorable to and does much business with the opposition.

Among other things, the investigators arrived at the following (in reference to the video advertisement which was uploaded to YouTube):

Federal election law requires that a disclaimer from those paying for campaign ads, “must appear on any “electioneering communication” and on any public communication by any person that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate or solicits funds in connection with a federal election.” Even when the ad is not paid for nor coordinated with the candidates election committee, “the disclaimer notice must identify who paid for the message, state that it was not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee and list the permanent street address, telephone number or World Wide Web address of the person who paid for the communication.”

No such disclaimer appears on the ad in question. However, “General public political advertising does not include Internet ads, except for communications placed for a fee on another person’s web site.” It is not clear to us whether a video is considered an “internet ad” or if the wording only meant to include banner ads or other more common forms of internet advertising.

I’m thinking that there may well be some litigation on the way to determine just what the FEC thinks of YouTube videos which fall into the category discussed here.

Much more important is the following, which comes at the very end of the report:

Sometimes rumors and lies get spread organically with no need from direction. But sometimes what may seem to be an organic bottom up grassroots movement, may actually be led from the top and may be professionally organized.

We believe at least one such campaign to discredit Sarah Palin is currently underway. It seems highly likely that others are as well. We’ve done the initial work, but now it’s time for the professionals to take over and ask the tough questions.

Go there, read it, draw your own conclusions from the evidence. And, if you have the ability to contribute some expertise to the effort, please do so.