This act is designed to promote free speech by entitling a person or group that is the target of an attack ad to a free response ad immediately following the attack ad.
A political attack ad is defined as an ad that either displays a picture or mentions a political candidate without their approval. All candidates who are the target of attack ads will be entitled to review such ad at least one week prior to its publication. No licensee of publicly owned broadcast media would be allowed to publish an ad without the targeted party being notified of the ad at least one week prior to its publication. Failure to do so would constitute a violation of the license and may result in the cancellation of that license.
The time allocated to the response ad will depend on the time of the attack ad. The response ad time will be lesser of the time of the original ad or 15 seconds. The response ad may not itself by an attack ad.
The Free Speech Act will increase the accuracy of attack ads because the person or group being attacked will
be entitled to an immediate free response. The free speech rights of persons and groups
who are being attacked will protected by this act.