John McCain is truly a hypocrite.  Not only has he restricted speech through his famous "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act", otherwise known as McCain-Feingold, otherwise known as the Incumbent Protection Act, but he also was one of the Senators he voted unanimously for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Among various provisions which limit the ability to use things they have purchased reasonably, it created something called a "safe harbor" for online distributors of content.  Essentially, it gives immunity from prosecution to any online content provider for posting copyrighted material so long as they promptly remove potentially infringing material upon receipt of a notice from a copyright holder.

These "take down notices" have been used ever since the passage of the DMCA to chill speech, and fight against the use of copyrighted material which previously had always been considered "fair use".  Because of the potential penalties involved for violation of the safe harbor, it puts a great deal of burden on those who choose to speak, while creating very little cost to those who try to suppress it.  Most online service providers never even review these claims later, because the cost of taking a chance is simply too high.

People have been complaining about these provisions for years.  John McCain just discovered them, because some of his campaign videos have been taken down from YouTube due to these safe harbor take down notices.  His solution was to send a letter to YouTube suggesting that videos submitted to the company from verified campaigns should be given special treatment, and manually review instead of immediately being taken down like videos from other content creators.  In other words, John McCain thinks that everyone should not be subject to equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.  In case you're wondering, the Obama Campaign has faced similar problems with take down notices.

What makes speech by his campaign more worthy of review than mine or anyone else's?  Do we have a two-tier system of speech in this country? More importantly, why should a politician not be subject to the exact same laws, and burdens that any ordinary citizen faces?  In fact, I think it is more important for politicians to face the exact same consequences of a law that everyone else faces.  After all, if politicians never experience the negative consequences of a law, then how can we expect change in that law when it goes wrong?

Of course, this isn't the first time McCain has tried to skirt the very laws he's voted for.  In April, he tried to convince the FEC to allow him to break provisions of the BCRA as well.