Slashdot Mirror
San Francisco Attempts to Regulate Blogging
Lawrence Person writes "Forget about theocratic Iran or Communist China; today's report of a political entity trying to regulate blogging comes not from The People's Republic of China, but rather The People's Republic of San Francisco. 'The San Francisco Board of Supervisors [announced] yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate." Worse, this is not an April Fools joke. It seems that 'campaign finance reform' is turning out to be the biggest Trojan Horse in the campaign to regulate free speech. "Are you now or have you ever been a blogger?"" Chris Nolan -- the "not a joke" link above -- is more reserved about the true scope of the proposed law (which would deal with election-related journaling specifically, not most diary-style Web journals), but has little good to say about it.
It has to do with campaign contribution laws, if I had to guess. An individual is limited to how much $$$ he can contribute to a particular candidate. If it costs $5,000 a year to run your blog and you spend every day raving about how great a particular candidate is ... have you, in effect, contributed $5,000 to his campaign?
I think $2,000 is one of the magic limits, but I'm not entirely sure how that works.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Did the person that wrote the article (personaldemocracy.com) RTFO? The city ordinance does not specifically mention blogging as they seem to imply. It simply says that anyone participating in electioneering for a specific candidate, and spending more then $1000 needs to register. This covers print, internet (where they derive the blogging inference) etc. Your average blogger doesn't spend $10, let alone $1,000, and most political blogs are not for one specific SF candidate.
here are a couple paraphrased for my convienience
"all elections communicaitons shall reveal/identify who paid for them" ie this was paid by ________
dont try and hide who paid for the communication
people paying for elections communications must detail their bills and send them over to the city if they go over 1000 bucks in aggregate per year.
money contributions over 100 dollars which were intented to offset elections communications costs must be documented.
that 500 person distribution limit for internet, radio,billboard, pamphlet, ectera of elections communications.
that 500 person limit seems fairly stupid, who cares about if 500 or 500 million people hear about stuff, it makes them better educated to vote.
unless this is a money thing, and then i could see it making sense. (huge money=huge advertising.)
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?
Conservative? Conservatives are for the smallest possible amount of government involvement in peoples' lives and a belief that the status quo usually represents an acceptable equilibrium. Thought Police are the domain of the Liberal/Progressive (see also political correctness). When taken to the extreme we call it Fascism. Some Progressives like to call fascists "ultra-right-wing" but that's just silly, Fascism is about as opposite Conservatism as one can get. Some definitions (per google):
fascism: An extreme form of nationalism that played on fears of communism and rejected individual freedom, liberal individualism, democracy, and limitations on the state.
conservatism: A political ideology generally characterized by a belief in individualism and minimal government intervention in the economy and society; also a belief in the virtue of the status quo and general acceptance of traditional morality.
Now you might see some Bible-thumpers claiming to be conservatives while trying to restrain your individualism through government largess, but if they claim they are also purple cows you shouldn't believe that either.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?
Because the so-called liberals have been in control of the media while the positions of the current camps labeled "liberal" and "conservative" have become approximately the reverse of the historical meaning of the terms.
A major component of the so-called conservative position is the rule of laws, not men. That includes the bill of rights - the whole bill of rights - as intended by the people who wrote it.
A major component of the so-called liberal position is suppression of politically-incorrect speech - which includes any expression of a policital idea at odds with any of the so-called liberal positions.
This is reflected in campaign finance "reform" laws whose clear design (not just whose effect) is to suppress the political speech of grass-roots movements and organizations, leaving a handfull billionaires and primarily left-wing institutions (such as the broadcast and print media and the labor unions) with a virtual monopoly on campaigning.
Blogs have to go because they have been used by grass-roots groups to bypass the gatekeepers and swing elections. The latest example is the way the blogs exposed the forged documents behing the _60 minutes_ hit piece on Bush at the end of the last presidential election. But there are numerous previous examples.
Three I remember are the letter-writing campaigns, organized via blogging, that took out Roberti and Roos (California legislators famous for sponsoring the legislation to ban so-called assault weapons) and Tom Foley (the only Speaker of the House ever to be defeated for reelection).
Blogging to spread the word and organize voters and campaigns is effective. Therefore the establishment will ban it. "Liberals" - who have the most to lose, since it challenges a keystone of their power - write and pass the laws to ban it. "Conservatives" oppose it, but weakly. It sometimes works in their favor. But it is outside their control, enabling the citizens to pick their own candidates and swing party policy rather than being stuck voting for the people and policies picked in the party's back room deals.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Elections BC has said that blogs, sites etc must register if their advertising value exceeds $500. http://www.strategicthoughts.com/record2005/EBC033 005.pdf
Read more here: http://www.strategicthoughts.com/record2005/freesp eechonSTV.html
The purpose of this legislation is not to "regulate blogging," as the submitter so breathlessly exclaims, it's to provide transparency in election financing. No one's being prevented from saying anything, or even from taking money to say a certain thing, but if anyone, whether blogger or billboard company or bumpersticker printer, receives money from a campaign or PAC to advocate that campaign or that PAC's issue, it's in the public's interest to know that fact. This is no different than the Federal laws that require political ads to identify the source of their funding ("This message has been brought to you by Citizens For Financial Obfuscation," that sort of thing.)
Bloggers are understandably defensive at the moment, since the serious political commentators and newsgathering blogs are frequently lumped in with the likes of Free Republic and teenagers' LiveJournals, but misrepresenting the issues at hand to turn everything into "the mainstream media/government/alien overlord is threatened by blogging!" is not a worthy strategy.
Ok. First things first. Download the proposed ordinace and read it.
If not read it, at least search for the word blog, internet, web, or anything else internet related. You wont find it.
You will find that anything journalistic related is excluded. Now, as we know here at slashdot, blogs may or may not be journalism. If they are considered journalism, they are excluded. If they are considered personal conversations, they are also excluded.
Note that this ordinance has not passed, and probably wont pass. Regardless, it seems to state some specific guidlines on advertisment funding disclosure for city officials. Thats about it.
Also, if you decide not to disclose information at all, your charged a whopping $10 a day until you disclose. Woo Hoo! Lunch money!
So, you publish your slam campaign on TV (because there is no internet issue covered at all) and pay $10 retroactively after election day till you either win or lose!
Have a nice day!
It doesnt work that way. If you host in another country you still are in the SF jurisdiction. You mention that it is "not impossible" to trace back, so if they see you were in a way trying to hide your identity, well, they can track you down. Do you know what happens in these situations? The judge and prosectors get reall pissed and will come down on you twice as hard.
ITs like possession of a machinegun in the US: you can be in california and you can have your machinegun buried in the arizona desert. The governemt would still consider you in posession of the machine gun because 1. you know where it is and 2. you have control over it (i.e can go drive out and dig it up)
Enjoy California. You people deserve everything you get.
-Expenses over $1000/year?
Check
-Poitical section of their site?
Check
-Hosted direct statements and opinions from candidates?
Check
-Has discussed San Francisco City elections?
Probably.
exemptions which includes "news stories, commentaries, or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio, television station, or other recognized news medium" which certainly might include a web page.
Or it might not. Does this let all 'web pages' off the hook? Certainly not.
So...would they have to file IAW this ruling? It would appear so.
No. Did you read the ordinance? If a political candidate or party is *paying* a blogger to write something about them, it has to be reported. The government isn't saying what people should and should not write. Just that if money and a political candidate is involved, the government wants to know about it. Remind me why this is a bad thing? Slashdot could, in theory, be considered a blog. Wouldn't you want to know, if, say, one of the editors was in fact being paid by Bill Gates to post pro-Microsoft stories (not that they'd ever get posted here, but you get the idea).
As for me, I'm frankly unsure to what extent I can prevent this from affecting me.
You're kidding, right? Don't accept money from a political party/candidate for your blog. Problem solved.
"real journalists" are allowed to express political opinions without begin regulated by campaign finance laws. Every major newspaper in the country endorses candidates in elections.
read the fucking ordinance. this is about electioneering and lobbyist/PAC disclosure. im sorry but the so-called blogosphere can be as ridiculous as the left as it is on the right. and its usage of FUD does nothing for its image--it's like the digital bobby fisher imho. and slashdot should be ashamed for posting this without a direct link to the law -- do you repost microsoft FUD verbatim??
Anyway, the ordinance, in not very well worded language, should not affect individual, non-affiliated sites... and the SF Ethics commission certainly isn't going to be doing any invasive auditing. Perhaps the wording is vague because this is standard disclosure form updates for a new medium -- _within_ electioneering and lobbyist codes/regulations.
disclaimer: I'm in school for my MPA and know people on the ethics commission. so i may be mildly biased. especially since i WISH someone would regulate chris daly out of existence.
in other words, you have freedom of speech as long as you don't discuss politics? how long before i get my papers?
No. You can't be on the payroll of some politician or otherwise perform electioneering on his behalf without making it public that that's what you're doing.
Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Speech ranges from "I have a dream" to spam. The type of speech that enjoys First Amendment protection is politically protected speech. If you are spending money to sell a product, like turtle wax, that's commercial speech- which is subject to a limited set of restrictions. Examples are when they force pharmaceutical companies to mention the diarrhea and vomiting, or when weight loss ads are forced to put "ADVERTISEMENT" in the footer of real-looking news articles. Restrictions on commercial speech are perfectly constitutional as long as they are reasonable.
This business with campaigning is treading closer to politically protected speech, and overlapping with it, since the speech is primarily political rather than purely commercial in nature. The controversial campaign finance reform was controversial precisely because it attempted to regulate speech in this domain. But not all political speech is necessarily constitutionally protected political speech- depending on the circumstances, it may have a commercial character. I may be receiving money in response for saying what I'm saying. The campaign finance laws- however you feel about them- were part of an attempt to impose reasonable and legitimate regulation of speech in this domain. One of the main strategies that this legislation took was to enforce full disclosure of the commercial aspects of speech, and to make sure that commercial means were not used to escape political consequences of speech. That's why you hear "I approved this message".
This ordinance looks like a minor piece of accountability legislation. It says that if you spend more than $1000 in any venue performing electioneering for a candidate, you have to register. This is so that accurate information about election funding can be kept as part of the public record. That is all. This is a restriction in that you are forced to disclose this information to the public, but they're not preventing you from saying anything, and it only applies to the commercial component of your speech.
This is much ado about nothing. Political demonstrations and public gatherings are about the most protected form of political speech there is, but in the United States you have to remain inside designated fenced-in areas or they'll arrest you for leaving your "First Amendment Zone".
As usual this sensational piece completely misrepresents the proposed change in regulation. The rules apply to those who *pay* someone else at least $1000 to say things about a candidate during an election.
c ommittees/materials/041489.pdf
Get the facts by reading the actual proposal (31MB PDF):
http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/
Maybe before clicking "send" on that letter you should read the actual ordinance instead of taking the highly inaccurate summary as gospel. Blogs are not being singled out. They're not even mentioned. The legislation has to do with political contributions, not speech.
The Supreme court has already dealt with this issue in the case of Steve Forbes. If you are spending your own money, as do newspapers and bloggers, your speech is protected by the First Ammendment. As it should be, even if you are filthy, stinking rich, or even if you are some kid (of any age) posting to the web from your mom's basement.
The extent to which this law might be supportable is highly dependant on the exact legal meaning of the word "electioneering" and only that portion of monies spent on such "electioneering" could be held to count, up until the time you accept payment of at least $100 from some other person to engage in electioneering.
But yes, the bill does not dicriminate (I've, like, actually read it and stuff). It is not aimed at bloggers and applies to any "Electioneering Communication" that is "distributed," "including, but not limited to" Cable, satellite, Internet, flyers, doorhangers, etc, etc, etc.
KFG
Start with the American Library Association, here
What branch of government was buring the books?
Office of Foreign Assets Control according to this news story.
I guess Google is just too hard to use these days.
Are journalists or columnists in traditional media required to register with the local authorities, pay a registration fee because they're popular, report all their costs (such as travel, meals with sources, etc), or turnover their readership (auditing of server logs) to the government so they can see who might be reading certain opinions?
No, and neither are bloggers. As many others on the this thread have pointed out, this is Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary -- the ordinance does not mention blogs anywhere, and only regulates spending by campaigns themselves. All it says is that any campaign has to register and report all media spending once it exceeds $1000.
What happened was somebody took this and sort of said something like "campaigns could spend money on blogs... so this ordinance regulates 'blogs'" so it sounds like the ordinance tries to regulate all blogs. No, that is not what's happening, what's happening is that local campaigns have to report all spending they do, in theory they could spend money on some blogs. So even if they did, it's not the blogs that are being regulated it's the campaign. The blogs themselves wouldn't have to report anything.
It's like saying the local police force has to track how much money they spend on bullets. So, bullets are a subset of "arms", so that means they want to regulate "arms". So, they want to "regulate arms" which is forbidden in the Constitution. It's like that children's game, playing telephone, but playing telephone with logic. It would be so easy to look up what the ordinance actually says, too, but I guess that's breaking the rules.
Actually, Massachusetts isn't very liberal anymore. It's more like there are very strong liberal "pockets", mostly around the major cities. The majority of the state is conservitive.
Hang on, isn't McCain both a Republican and a conservative? He was trying to get the bill passed. It's even named after him. He wasn't shouting from the rooftops against it. He was shouting for it. Is someone only a conservative if you decide they are?
... and then they built the supercollider.
". . . the wording is pretty vague."
Of such are court cases made, although some of these issues have already been addressed by various Supreme Court decisions.
"If blogs aren't "recognized" as a "news medium," wouldn't this mean they could be considered "electioneering communications?" "
And so we must define just what "recognized" and "news medium" is, yes. Notice the caveat about ownership though, and again, personal political speech is already protected, even if you spend money on it. The issue at hand that the bill is seeking to address is monies spent directly in the process of "electioneering." Flying from San Francisco to Boston to support a candidate at a convention would not be "electioneering," merely a protected expression of your politics, at least by the time the case reached a high court (would your legal expenses be considered part of what you spent on "electioneering"? Ah, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to regulate political speech).
Nor does the section you quote actually absolve newspapers from the law, it simply recognizes that certain kinds of speech that they engage in do not fall under the umbrella of "electioneering." Other forms of speech they might engage in just might.
The bill is also voluntary, in the sense that there won't be blog registration police roaming around knocking on the doors of everyone with a blog demanding that they obtain a speech license. You are expected to determine whether you must register yourself and take the steps to do so if you feel the bill applies to you. If you are not being paid to support a candidate it almost certainly doesn't.
And it's San Franciso, so there might also be some other, mitigating bill if you take harmonica lessons or something. They're funny out there.
Of course none of this addresses the core issue, to wit, any election campaign finance reform can only be effective to the extent that we throw out the First Ammendment and institute a speech police force.
To my mind this is a disease far worse than the "cure."
KFG
>His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.
s c-d95.html/
p rez.bush.marriage/
Bush?
Are we talking about George 'I love the Constitution so much I lock people up for 3 years without charges and without access to an attorney' W. Bush? Here is what those wacko ultra-liberal Democrats (NOT!) at the Cato Insitute have to say about it http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-21-03.html/
Are are we talking about the George W. 'I love free speech so much I have the secret service arrest people that try to ruin my photo opportunities' Bush? http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/bursey-d
Or are we talking about the guy that wanted to ammend the Consitution to prohibit one particular form of free speech, not so much because he actually cared (because deep down in side, he cares about nothing) but because he wanted to pander to the anti-liberty wing of the Republican party http://www.patridiots.com/000875.html/
Or are we talking about the George W. 'Pass the religious Bigotry and Homophobia act of 2005 and my signature will be on it tomorrow' http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/24/elec04.
Whatever else he is, W. is no fan of the Consitution as it is today, and certainly no fan of liberty. But hey, that's OK, he has a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle. Nobody in the last 100 years has proposed an Amendment to give people more freedom, we only seem to get amendments to take freedom away.
Maybe I missed something but I looked at the ordinance here
And I think this article is extremely misleading.
IT DOES NOT REQUIRE BLOGGERS TO REGISTER.
It requires the spender of the $1000 or more for electioneering to report it.
If there is a line requiring these audits, could someone please point it out to me.
Let's assume for the moment that only 'well-regulated militia's can carry man-portable arms. I don't agree, but for the purposes of this argument, we will overlook that.
US Code, Title 10, Section 113 defines who the members of the "militia" are:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Hm. That would mean, at a bare minimum, any "able-bodied" male from 17-45 has the right to own a Glock 23, an AR-15, an M4A1, a Stinger missile, an M240 (perhaps not an M60), a bandolier of fragmentation grenades, satchel charges, etc. Anything portable by "a man".
Just in case you think the exception mentioned excludes a lot of folks:
(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard,
a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64
years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy,
Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for
reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.
(b) To be eligible for appointment as an officer of the National
Guard, a person must -
(1) be a citizen of the United States; and
(2) be at least 18 years of age and under 64.
As for your funky 'shooting spree' comment, we already have laws that cover murder, etc.; no need to imply that without infringing firearm rights, we'd be legally sanctioning such offenses.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?