This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, March 7, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown.

What limitations can be placed on your rights to free speech and free association.

In the world of politics, sometimes people have to choose which right they'd like to exercise.

SpeechNow.org is an attempt to assert the constitutional rights of both free speech and

association in the political realm. Steve Simpson who represents

speech now dot org is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.

Draw out what the importance is of having a distinction between an independent speech group and a pack?

Well, an independent speech group is a group that wants to spend its own money on its own speech.

It is people getting together to pool their funds so they can amplify their voices by

associating with others. Speech now.org doesn't make contributions to political

candidates it doesn't accept any kind of contributions

or favors from candidates or political parties,

and it's not a corporation.

So independent really means independent of politicians.

And the reason that that's relevant is that the Supreme Court has held that limits on contributions

to political committees have to be justified by the concern for eliminating corruption.

If one does not make contributions to politicians,

if one does not coordinate one's activities with politicians, there can be no concern about corruption.

The FEC had requested that Speech Now file as a PAC?

Well, essentially that's true.

What Speech Now was required to do... Well, essentially that's true.

What Speech Now was required to do in order to find out

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