BUSH CAMPAIGN TARGETS PARODY SITE

Presidential candidate George W. Bush bought up dozens of domain names that might be used to spoof his campaign. But Zack Exley, who runs gwbush.com, is now being pressured by the Bush campaign. He has received a cease and desist letter from a Washington law firm charging him with copyright violations and protesting his links to offensive web sites. The offending material was subsequently removed but the law firm wrote a letter on May 3rd to the Federal Elections Commission saying that the gwbush.com site violates the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1971 because it has not registered as a political committee. Exley responded that such a registration would involve consultations with lawyers and accountants that are beyond his financial means and would therefore effectively shut him down. He has also turned the issue into something of a crusade, apparently distressed by Bush's refusal to acknowledge his past cocaine use. The first version of gwbush.com is now archived at http://rtmark.com/gwbush.com The full text of the cease and desist letter may be found at http://rtmark.com/bush.html. The parody site itself may be found at http://www.gwbush.com/

From Bytes in Brief, Issue 24, June 1999