Are the fake websites set up by the National Republican Campaign Committee that use the names of congressional candidates and raise money against them illegal?

Welcome to the murky world of campaign finance! As with many practices, this falls under "Not Yet Ruled Upon." Let's lay some basic understanding before we dig into this. The Federal Election Commission (See: ) is administered by a group of six Commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. These Commissioners, of whom no more than three can be of the same party, meet two or three times a week in private and public meetings and determine campaign finance understanding. Much as the Supreme Court determines how to "read" a law, so too do these Commissioners offer opinions how to "read" a regulation. These opinions are not legally binding in the way many people believe they should be, and it is common for large organizations to sue the FEC for a legal understanding. Currently, four Commissioners have been appointed by George W. Bush, and 2 have been appointed by Barack Obama. Currently, the FEC has not scheduled any meetings where they will discuss and offer advisory opinions regarding so-called "spoof" websites. Granted, the FEC is required by law not to disclose what is discussed in closed executive meetings, but the next public meeting is at the end of February 2014. It is possible that an advisory opinion may be offered, but I believe that to be exceptionally unlikely as none of this is actually illegal. This isn't illegal?This is all governed by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. The part mentioned in the article is Title 2 of the United States Code § 432(e)(4), Title 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations § 102.14(a) (58 FR 65559), & 11 CFR § 102.14(b)(3) which "permit[s] the use of candidate names in titles that clearly indicate the opposition to the named candidate" and the definition of a website as an "Independent Expenditure," (11 CFR 100.16) which can be used to tell people not to vote for a candidate that the group (in this case the NRCC) opposes. They are required to included a "Special Notice" when made as a "public communication, such as website available to the general public, regardless of whether the communications expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate..." The Special Notice is the part at the bottom of that website which says "Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.http://www.nrcc.org/." You'll see a similar tagline in my own disclaimer on any and all PAC-related answers. Regardless, the complaint would be as follows: The offending websites are illegal because the law "strictly prohibits an authorized committee of a candidate to use the name of their opponent in any 'name' utilized by the candidate.... [T]he only permissible use of a website URL would be by an unauthorized committee in a way that unambiguously shows opposition to the named candidate." This means that an unauthorized committee would be illegal in creating a website named "RyanBorekForCongress.com" and directing that to a page to defeat me. Hasn't there been anything like this before? Isn't there a ruling?Yes. It's not illegal. This certainly isn't illegal for any authorized committee, such as was shown in this exact case with regards to Kevin Yoder For Congress (2010). This was tested in Yoder For Congress in MUR 6399 June 23, 2011, which followed the below reasoning. Yoder for Congress is an authorized committee. As such, this website and all websites like it at issue violate neither the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 nor any Federal Election Commission regulations. Why? Let's discuss! Authorized committees are only required to contain the candidate's name, but neither the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 nor Commission regulations impose any other naming restrictions. Special Project ("fundraising or advertising projects") cannot include any candidate names unless they are showing opposition to the identified candidate, but may use those names in the text of the communication. Authorized committees are not required to obey Special Projects provisions, and in any event the website has a disclaimer which makes clear who is operating it. Yoder for Congress complied with the requirement to include "Yoder" in its name, therefore it was subject to no further restrictions regarding the website's URL. The FEC defines "Name" to include "any name under which a committee conducts activities, such as solicitations or other communications, including a special project name or other designation. Here, there wass no dispute that Yoder for Congress was the authorized committee for Kevin Yoder. There was no debate that the Yoder for Congress disclaimer included Yoder's name in it's own name. Therefore, because the Act and Commission regulations impose no naming requirements on authorized committees other than those described above, nothing prohibited Yoder for Congress from using his examples as a web address. So how does this affect the NRCC case?Delicately. The NRCC is an unauthorized committee, but it's also a qualified party committee. This changes things because while it technically does not support a single candidate (and thus is why it is unauthorized) it does support all candidates, and does so from an authorized standpoint. The law states that unauthorized committees cannot use a name as the title of a special project, unless the project name shows unambiguous opposition to the candidate. It's very grey, and here's why: The NRCC fully admits they are doing this. They have included the legal disclaimer required. They have sent out press releases that they are doing this. None of the text on the site suggests that they are supporting the candidates. The names are probably actually written as "Help Defeat XYZ for Congress." The site clearly says "Fed up with XYZ" and others says "Help Defeat" The NRCC offers to refund anyone's money if they feel deceived. With all of these in place, considering the NRCC's role as a qualified party committee, and considering the previous regulation opinions, it's quite probable that this will remain legal. 2 U.S.C. § 432(e)(4); 11 C.F.R. § 102.14(a). As the D.C. Circuit explained, this provision "is directed solely at disclosure of whether a political committee that solicits funds from the public is part of the authorized campaign machinery of a candidate," and was enacted to "clarify for readers and potential contributors the candidate authorization status of the political committees who sponsor advertisements and fund solicitations." Common Cause v. FEC, 842 F.2d 436,446 (D.C. Cir. 1988). '° 11 C.F.R. § 102.14(b)(3). This rule was adopted in response to a rulemaking record containing "substantial evidence that potential contributors often confuse an imauthorized committee's registered name with the names of its fimdraising projects, and wrongly believe that their contributions will be used in support of the candidate(s) named in the project titles." Special Fimdraising Projects and Other Use of Candidate Names by Unauthorized Committees (Final Rule), 59 Fed. Reg. 17267,17268 (Apr. 12,1994). For example, the Commission was concemed about the possibility that "[pjotential donors may think they are giving money to the candidate named in the project's title, when this is not the case." Id. Ultimately, the Commission recognized that "the potential for fraud and abuse is significantly reduced" in the case of "titles that clearly indicate opposition" to the named candidate, and wrote a rule "narrowly designed to further the legitimate governmental interest in minimizing the possibility of fraud and abuse." Id. at 17268-69. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/432 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2012-title11-vol1/pdf/CFR-2012-title11-vol1-sec102-14.pdf (11 CFR 102.14) This answer may refer you to information about political donat...

Ryan Borek's answer is flawless. Three notes: During the McCain campaign, I was assigned to sit down and register every version I could think of for a possible domain related to the campaign. Today when I type mccainpalin (dot) com, Quora helpfully changes it to http://mccainpalin.com , but I registered mccainpalin 2012 and jmccain2008 and, well, I don't remember the total, but it obviously didn't cost very much because I only paid for them for a year. It was purely defensive and prevented the Obama campaign from doing the very thing that the NRCC has done in this instance. This wasn't an amazingly forward-thinking move on the campaign's part, it was already, five years ago (60 years ago in internet dog years) a basic task for every minimally competent campaign at every level, and most particularly federal campaigns at a high level like a Congressional race. To their credit, Time Magazine not only reported it when the Democrats did the same thing to a Republican, they also linked to it within this story. Just stay calm and keep in mind that this is something like holding is to an NFL lineman; it's not particularly honorable, and I wouldn't want to have to sit down with my late grandmother and explain that this is what I did for a living, but it's a very high stakes game and both sides do it. It's not excusable to break a law if both sides do it, mind you. I'm just saying that there's no way the law can keep up with clever campaign operatives in the field. http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/06/jane-corwins-internet-fail/ I want to say a word about negative campaign messaging in general. You can imagine how many pages it would take to write regs that would unambiguously define the difference between a legitimate free-speech negative site, like SmithIsBadForTennessee (dot) com, and one that uses the same fonts and colors as Smith's campaign web site. Hillary Clinton's media guru Mark Mellman points out that there are only two types of political messages: negative and meaningless. Negative ads, by definition, point out some flaw or weakness in the opponent and contrast it with your candidate's strength (either explicitly or implicitly). If the negative ad is petty, or if it's a lie, it will surely backfire. But I grow increasingly impatient with the media's eagerness to report that so-and-so has "gone negative" if they run ads with scary music and less-than-flattering photos of the opponent. These are ads that help voters make up their minds. They present the reasons that the other candidate is not a suitable choice. Armed with this information, voters can make up their own minds. By contrast, the meaningless ads are the ones that say nothing about the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates. They show your candidate with a beautiful spouse and three perfect children and a bouncy dog, and talk about a brighter tomorrow. Very positive. Very meaningless.

Of course it's illegal! Specially, it violates 18 U.S. Code 1343.  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343 The false pretenses language nullifies fine print defenses. It is well established that wire includes Internet in the eyes of the law. The problem with some other answers is they just look at FEC regulations. But FEC regulations don't always cover things that are quite obviously illegal for other reasons. There is no FEC regulation saying don't assassinate your opponent, just as there is no regulation saying don't use fraud to fund your campaign. Common sense says look at other laws.