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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.
How do you define a blog, and how does it differ from a frequently-updated website?
It'd be more easily enforcable (i.e. less loopholes) to apply such a regulation to all mass media, especially if preventing political bribery is your goal.
Has anybody got a link to an actual newspaper article on the subject? While bloggers and advocacy sites can break news stories, they're also full of innuendo, rumor, and things blown way out of proportion.
I prefer to get my news from some organization without an axe to grind.
point taken. Not all liberals understand liberty, and not all conservatives get conservatism..... coughBUSHcough. ;)
Actually there is an issue here, and its valid. Its just one of those issues where there is hardly an answer for. Frankly regulating bloggers is a stupid way to get bloggers to disclose their campaign connections.
The best way to deal with "trojan bloggers" or "trojan talking heads on tv" is to simply investigate them secretly and expose them, and assasinate them publically based on the facts of their doings. If someone has taken money, then expose them the old fashioned way.
GO YANKS!
If I am saying things about an election, it's journalism.
This is the case regardless of the medium on which I say things. The appearance of the "internet" does not mysteriously grant the government power to regulate speech, or the press.
If they want me to register, or pay money, or do any damn thing they say because I am privately acting as a member of the press, then they can fuck off because they aren't getting anything out of me no matter what the law says. They don't have the power or authority to either make or enforce such laws.
The end of the fairness doctrine during the Regan administration has blown the lid off of most any effort to have accountability on the airwaves and elsewhere. Instead of politicians speaking directly, their message is usually delivered by proxies. The Republicans have been masterful at this, deferring to talk radio hosts much of their message. Since the Right(tm) nearly owns all of the AM dial and all of the FM talk dial not associated with Public Radio, this has been an very effective conduit for them.
Even if some wrong-headed blog-managing rules were put into place by SF, CA or the US, proxies would appear quickly and funnel the same information to those who might listen, with the source one-level-removed.
Attempting to regulate speech is problematic, as I'm sure those behind this effort will discover.
>Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?
what are you talking about?
the conservtives were 100% against Campaing Finance Reform. Esp. us libertarians.
Regulation of political speech is about as core to the left-wing of politics as the passing game was to USC last year.
Look at eveyr single socialist/communist state - every sing one, without fail, regulated speech and ensured that it was politically correct.
Saying things like nigger, kike, grabtastic faggot are protected by the libertarian document, the US Constitution in its 1st Amendment.
Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be.
call me a sexist, homophobic, racist right wing Christian pig - that's YOUR right.
but my right to think how I want and the right for you to think how YOU want is not in any way a liberal/left wing idea. never has been.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Your absolutely right about the issue of broadcast. But I think these sorts of regulations will never stand because they are grossly unconstitutional when applied to the Internet. Political speach is highly protected, but regulation is allowed in broadcast media because the public does not have equal access. Those who own the broadcast medias, or are wealthy enough to buy access, have an unfair advantage, so they need to be regulated. But the on the Internet this is not really true because it is cheap and easy to get your views out (in fact that is what blogging is really about). So any regulation which could target the average person posting their policatal speach would never stand up in court.
This has a VERY saddening side effect: what if a local San Francisco poltician is doing screwy things and you try exposing them while their running? or how about your good ol' political critiqueing? This will in effect stomp out those who try to attack politicians for their fopaws. This is VERY serious issue, and should go to the courts.
The issue at heart is that there are now so many venues to surreptitously flog political viewpoints disguised as something else. If someone thinks they are reading a personal blog with a political viewpoint and it is in fact a paid action on behalf of a candidate, they have a right to know that up front.
This is happening in many areas and politics is just one. Marketing disguised as objective scientific evidence, etc. I've heard on these boards people dissing the BBC and the CBC because they receive government funds. Yippee, if Fox isn't an organ of republican viewpoint, I don't know what is... so this is really less about free speech and more about truth in advertising.
So now the government has the right to regulate speech so long as the person performing that speech receives some sort of monetary restitution for this?
Perhaps there are better ways to create fair campaign finance regulations than this.
As for me, I'm frankly unsure to what extent I can prevent this from affecting me. I will probably be creating a politics-related website within the near future which will eventually explicitly cover elections and such, but I am starting to fear I will be unable to run it off of a donation model since apparently if the wrong person clicks that paypal "support this site" link I suddenly mutate from being a free citizen exercising my right to operate a free private press into... well, something else. I wonder, is it possible to be infected with the you're-a-PAC-now virus if your hosting-bill funding comes from selling t-shirts?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
There's just as much PC on the Right as on the Left, it's just that you're supposed to say (or not say) different things. Nobody in the mainstream media dares to say anything bad about the recently departed Pope, f'rinstance. (This is part of a general, long-running, PC-of-the-Right reverence for religion.) Extremists on both sides will always try to muzzle those with whom they disagree. You can keep believing otherwise if you like, of course ... right up until they take you to the camps.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
>Nobody in the mainstream media dares to say anything bad about the recently departed Pope, f'rinstance.
there's a difference between actively, with government help, SILENCEING people who say things against a political correctness, and simply not liking them.
There is a difference between the government using the force of law to silence someone with any number of 4th Amendment violations, and for the masses to simply be pissed as your ass.
f'rinstance.. "The Left" at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, a student was, by the government of the state of california, told to remove a flyer from a wall because it was offensive, told to write a letter of apology because he offended a couple of easily offendable black folk, and was threatened with expulsion and forfieture of his tuition. That is ACTUAL censorship. That is done by the government against the people with the force of law.
on "The Right" - when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them to lay siege to their house longer than it took to take over Baghdad and then light it on fire... we simply stopped listening to the Dixie Chicks and buying their CDs.
there's a big fscking difference there, my friend.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Actually, the "Left" came to like the Pope in the past few yearsfor speaking out against the Iraq war and various policies of the Bush Administration. He also made undeniable contributions to the advancement of freedom in some countries, which is more than the Left or the Right can say for themselves. I don't think it's a PC issue so much as respect for the recently departed. There will always be time for criticism.
Umm nope, the only campaign finance reform that makes sense is to ban all forms of campaign finance except that allocated by an independant Electoral Commission based on a per vote basis.
You remove all laws regarding the financing of political campaigns and you are going to have much worse than just the mega corps buying your senators, how about the senator for North Korea or the Congress Man for China?
I haven't fully comprehend the proposed ordinance. But I think you guy pull the trigger too quick. I think what proposed amendment is target for elected officials, not your average citizens. The whole thing is probably spawn the supervisor Chris Daly's blog and they feel there is need to clarify the the guideline for themselves.
Daly starts blog on city Web site District 6 supervisor first official to keep diary on city's site
I've been thinking about this alot. Why does it matter if someone actually believes what they are saying, or was just paid to say so?
More to the point..what is the point of 'campaign fianance reform?' Looking for a serious answer here...what exactly is the problem that is supposed to be solved by it?
in other words, you have freedom of speech as long as you don't discuss politics? how long before i get my papers?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them
If "we" means the administration, yes, this is most certainly true, because even this administration recognizes the limits of executive power. However, I have been reading right-wing blogs and news sources for years, and I have consistently seen individual writers advocating, say, treason trials for anti-war protestors. As noxious as I find leftist attempts to ban "hate speech" and the like, on the left only the hardcore commies are advocating shooting people who say things they don't like.
Generally the Republican politicians themselves are more realistic, aside from the occasional accusation of treason. But it would be a gross exaggeration to state that the GOP rank-and-file supports unfettered free speech.
"San Francisco Attempts to Regulate Blogging"
Enough said.
This is like the UN trying to regulate the entire Internet. (April Fool's post)
Look at eveyr single socialist/communist state - every sing one, without fail, regulated speech and ensured that it was politically correct.
Look at every single socialist / communist state - every single one, without fail, had people paid to promote things they didn't believe to get money from rich people who wanted into power or who wanted to stay in power, and who greased their hands in return.
Paid speech isn't free. It costs more than just money.
The ______ Agenda
actually, there are legitmate liberal and conservative labels. taken in the classical sense, a liberal seeks change, while a conservative seeks the status quo. now, how do you define liberal and conservative. we often make the mistake in America of labeling secularists and traditionalists with the lib/cons labels. and there is a huge difference. in fact, secularists could be quite conservative, and traditionalists quite liberal, as per above definition.
today's lib/cons debate tends to break down along three areas, 1) role of government, 2) property rights, 3) individual liberty
liberals generally want more government (higher taxes, more spending), less property rights (gun control, environmental laws) and more liberty (abortion). conservatives generally want less gov., more prop rights, and less liberty, or at least less nihilism.
now, bush is no conservative. he wants a big government, massive spending, and has a federal solution for everything. his foreign policy (save for all the ignorance around here) is very liberal, in a wilsonian/rooseveltian manner. he has eschewed the republicans favored Realpolitik and stability (so Bismarckian) for a proactive policy of change. (and no the war wasn't about oil, or even wmd's. sorry excuse for what will historically be a great policy.) guys like dean really aren't as liberal as secular. bush's soc sec. plan is actualyl quite liberal, while the opponents are quite conservative.
where does that leave the debate, it's really a left vs. right debate, which ahs nothing to do with lib/cons labels. leftism has a decidely deterministic (marx, hegel) outlook, whereas rightism sees history as mutable and the result of great ideas and people (the classical, aristotelian approach. i.e. thucydides, herodotus). it's really more a way of looking at the world. for example, those who see the iraqi war as for oil, believe in the deterministic view, that external forces (class oppression) thus it's an evil venture. whereas those who see the history as shaped by events (thus democracy can reshape the middle east) are usually in favor of the war.
there's of course other factors, as those "conservatives" opposed to the war, i.e. pat buchanan, are influenced by outside forces (anti-semitism, the church, etc.) and thus are more traditionalist leftists. (his opposition to abortion and free trade)
yes, i do teach this stuff. this is a brief summary, but it's more accurate to define left vs. right, which is a substantive debate.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I guess I must have imagined all of those book burnings, removal of the teaching of evolution in schools in favour of creationism, fines against TV networks over Janet Jackson's breast, etc, etc, etc, ...
The idea that the Right doesn't do this is fanciful in the extreme. The Right is the primary practioner of censorship in the world right now, based on "moral values" that don't hold up to even minimal scrutiny.
The Left is not blameless, but it has come to terms with its extremist tendancies by putting checks and balances in place to prevent the worst abuses from recurring. The Right doesn't care one whit about checks and balances (witness the recent Shiavo mess).
The point was to make it harder for those not in power to remove those that currently have power.
The issue at heart is that there are now so many venues to surreptitously flog political viewpoints disguised as something else... ...so this is really less about free speech and more about truth in advertising.
People like you truly scare me. If this issue isn't about free speech (exactly the kind of speech addressed in the first amendment) then I don't know what is.
The U.S. founding fathers gave citizens some credit for using being able to use their own brain's to figure out and form their own political opinions. However, two centuries later we seem to have reached a point where a substantial segment of our society believe's that raw political opinions are too dangerous and must to be vetted and sanitized through a nanny-state machine before they are fit for the masses. Laws such this are just a start.
People who support these types of laws must remember they are a double edge sword that can and will cut both ways. Your particular political opinions may be supported for the time being with such laws and those you disagree with suppressed. However, there will come a time when the tables are turned and the same laws you support to silence your foes are used against you and your political allies.
Our founding fathers had it right. Keep your and governments grubby hands off my free speech. For both my sake and yours.
And some just want a place to air their thoughts. It'd be incredibly stupid to make people that talk about politics in their blog (which covers a very wide range of things) register their blog, regardless of if they prefer to think of themselves as journlists or not.
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
Except when it comes to gay marriage, dying with dignity, smoking marijuana, playing D&D in the community center, or a thousand other personal issues. Then it's regulation hell.
People who call themselves Conservatives just *say* they want to give the government off your back. That doesn't actually *mean* they want the government off your back.
Now you might see some Bible-thumpers claiming
Don't water it down by claiming there are only "some" Bible-thumpers trying to tell us what to do. These Bible-pushers have become the most powerful force in the Republican party, and are only too happy to ask the government to regulate my personal activities.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
> Pop quiz: which of these people is a Republican:
>
> * McCain
> * Feingold
Sen Feingold is a Democrat and Sen McCain is whatis known as a RINO (republican In Name Only) who was the preferred candidate of the mainstream (read that as Democratic Party aparatus) press during the 2000 primary Republican Primaries.
> Quiz number 2: Which of the following Soviet dictators signed the
> McCain-Feingold act into law:
Yes and we conservatives are pissed about Bush signing it. But to give him a little slack he did have fairly sound tactical reasons for it. He reasoned correctly that a veto would be hung around his neck like an albatross for sis being a 'tool of special interests' while signing it was safe since it is patently in violation of the 1st Amendment. His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.
> Final question, regarding tolerance of other viewpoints: which of the
> following prominent politicians issued a threat on Thursday against
> any federal judge who dared oppose his wishes?
Kinda twisting his words more than a bit aren't you? But at any rate I have no problem with making a public anouncement that the legislative branch is mad as hell and ready to make judges pay a price for usurping the lawmaking powers that are NOT the province of judges. Regardless how you believe on a lot of issues, the courts were NOT where laws regarding them should have issued from.
Democrat delenda est
"Its only applicable to blogs that mention candidates"
Ummm. The First Ammendment's entire purpose is to protect political speech.
No candidate or elected official should ever be shielded from the voice of the people. The 60 day moratorium on political speech by the public prior to an election is one of the most nefarious laws I have ever seen passed in the USA.
The entire purpose of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights is to define the limits of government to act against the people. The campaign finance law has this all turned around.
And notice that it did not seem to actually work. The last election was awash in money.
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?
I doubt that they are. If they are, then that's, at the very LEAST, highly disturbing. The fact that you wish that bloggers would stop posting doesn't mean that the government, or anyone else, should be able to come in and regulate their speech. It's the same principle as the tv: if you don't like the programming, then change the channel, or turn it off.
The reasons politicians are interested in singling out blogs are pretty obvious. Blogs have a relatively low startup and maintenance cost, can be started by anyone, and whereas there are relatively few points of regulation for traditional media, blogs are highly distributed. The squashing of a scandal, omission of facts, or the redirection of public attention becomes incredibly difficult for people (politicians, corporations, etc) who have become accustomed to a certain amount of cover from the elitist press.
Traditional MSM are scared because of such scandals like Dan Rather's Forged Memo story. Before blogs, the fact that there were some serious questions about the authenticity of those national guard memos would have never seen a wide audience and would have been largely relegated to the lore of right-wing conspiracy theorists.
CBS and others are pissed because now their job, getting the story RIGHT, has suddenly become that much more difficult with people who are both knowledgable in such matters AND able to make that knowledge widely known. Furthermore, because of the rapid response made possible by blogs, the facts are checked over and over again and a truer picture of what actually happened becomes hammered out. Contrast this with the relatively slow response times of the NYT or WT, stories with innaccuracies are only slowly corrected and usually in the back sections of the paper. An inaccurate picture is usually what people are left with.
I think there is no clearer ideal of what free political speech looks like.
Humorless sig goes here.
Oh get down from your cross. That's such a tired old line of crap. You're not living in ancient Rome being fed to lions...you're actually by far the most politically powerful religion in the U.S. Even fake reporters busted for running gay prostitution sites try that old line.
now, we'd be perfectly happy for you to hate Jesus and want to screw each other in the butt all day long if you'd just let us say we think its wrong.. but then, that would be hate speach, wouldn't it?
What a complete and utter lie! You do realize that not explicitly making gay marriage illegal won't result in YOU having to marry a gay guy, don't you? You're church can go on refusing to perform gay marriages. But when you want to make it illegal for everyone, that is far beyond merely wanting to "say we think it's wrong."
there is already legal precident in Canada stating that the Bible is hate speech...
The link points to a law making it illegal to advocate genocide. A search of the page shows no hits for the words "bible" or "jesus". If you really think the bible advocates genocide...well...you're the one who has to sleep at night knowing that's your religion.
So campaign finance disclosure is now a bad thing?
Once again, it is apparent that /. authors and readers don't bother checking facts and blindy believe any piece of misleading drivel they find on the internet. This is yet another BS article blowing things out of proportion and trying to stir up controversy (and maybe slashdot readership?). If I want to readed misleading, inflammatory, blown out of proportion crap then I would just head down to the supermarket and open the Enquirer!
For those of you who didn't bother to actually read the ordinance before spouting off an opinion, The SF ordinance applies to people actually campaigning and doesn't specifically mention blogging. It says that if you are running for SF political office you have to disclose your expenditures. Standard policy. If you follow the editting marks in the ordinance, you'll see that it previously only referred to "expenditures". The revision added a lot of verbage to include "electioneering communications". Presumably that includes newspaper ads, radio spots, billboards, spam emails, a web site, setting up internet blogs, etc. I would be upset if a city didn't require candidates to disclose their expenditures.
The ordinance does not apply to the average Joe on the street. It does not apply to newspaper articles and blogs not commisioned by the campaigner.
Your definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" do not match those in real-world use in American politics, and your argument concerning "liberals" is nothing more than a straw man to paint people whose political viewpoints you disagree with as holding opinions they do not and being spoken for by persons (such as the "mainstream media") who they are not.
Surely the people will not allow the very freedom to communicate and do so widely and instaneously that my generation of geeks worked hard to produce - this generation and ours shall not suffer this great gift to be shut down because it worries those in power. They have reason to be worried because they have done evil things. Now they have even more to be worried about because they are threaetenig to silence the people. They act as if the Net and the Web is their property. They are not. They are the property of the people.
I never thougt to see in my time this awful mixture of great evil from politicians and the people making excuses as to why removing their freedom is just fine. Is their no level of political evil and spitting malice from our supposed servants that will cause us to stand up in masse for freedom, for justice, for our lives, for anything? Are we rotten and empty to the core?
Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Dang - I must have the abbreviated version of the First Amendment. All my copy says is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Naturally your copy, and that of our esteemed judiciary, must have the small print version many of us lack. I have no doubt that as time goes on, more and more of that small print will be claimed to exist - all for perfectly high-sounding reasons of "fairness".
make judges pay a price for usurping the lawmaking powers that are NOT the province of judges.
Judges cannot write laws. They never could.
So what's happening?
The GOP talking points now dictate that what used to be called "judicial review" or "separation of powers" should now be called "judicial activism" or "legislating from the bench."
It's really an homage to the power of words. All you have to do is call it "legislating" and people actually think that judges are out there writing laws. It's fucking absurd, pardon my french.
Judges have not "usurped" lawmaking powers. This is an absurdity. Judges have not and cannot write laws. All that's happened is some Republican media mouthpieces started calling Constitutionally-denoted judicial review lawmaking. That's the only thing that's changed. Judges have done not adopted any new practices of extra-constitutionally writing laws. Let's not even mention that the executive branch would also have to be extra-constitutionally enforcing these pseudo-laws -- Funny how this "separation of powers" stuff works.
See, the problem is that separation of powers gets in the way of real power -- power that the Constitution incidentally forbids. Three branches of government, checks and balances and whatnot. Apparently that all means nothing if a few propagandists changed their wording slightly.
But, let's forget all of that. What I really want to know is what exactly you mean by making judges "pay a price". What are you going to to, kick their ass? Arrest them? What?
Please fill me in. I eagerly await further enlightenment.
Dang - I must have the abbreviated version of the First Amendment. All my copy says is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Naturally your copy, and that of our esteemed judiciary, must have the small print version many of us lack.
(Emphasis mine)
You are correct. Interpretation of the Constitution is the Federal Court's Constitutionally mandated role, as per Article III.
Limiting campaign spending is limiting free speech, period. If anyone feels that large political machines gain too much power from having too much money, then the only logical response is to provide more free forums in which smaller political groups can be heard.
More speech is good, less speech is bad.
Nothing like the Law of Unintended Consquences, eh?
And counting down for the modbombing in 3, 2, 1...
Wow...you got the modbombing, didn't you?
Hey moderators: if you don't like what he has to say, reply . The man speaks the truth: it was primarily conservatives who were against McCain-Feingold.
Why did we all-of-the-sudden forget this around here on Slashdot? Or maybe...those with the mod points want us to forget. Let's not play that game, okay?
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Want to start an unsubstantiated rumour about your political opponent? What better place to start than at some anonymous blog, and then for good measure, post some trackbacks at a few more anonymous blogs. Like any good rumour mill, the bloggers will repeat and repost it, all the while believing they're scooping the traditional media.
The Public Relations industry has always been at the forefront of technology in their eternal pursuit of manipulating public opinions. Their use of weblogs should be of no surprise, but bloggers seem to continue to insist that their 'community' has not been infected by these corporate interests. Like it or not, you are being used to spread misinformation, and blinding yourself to it only does yourself a disservice.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
McCain is a Republican, but he's no conservative.
At least he's not a social conservative. He's "pro choice" and in favor of gun control.
He's a RINO. (Republican In Name Only)
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
when Bill Maher made some tasteless remark about the WTC attackers
When did that happen? What really happened is that he made a truthful comment about the WTC attackers - the comment that people should stop calling them cowards because frankly, performing an act to further a cause when you know it will get you killed is not cowardice in the slightest. That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't justify it. But he pointed out that while there were many reasons that what they did was wrong, cowardice couldn't possible be one of them. And in fact it was wrong because the people involved had way too MUCH conviction and certainty. The point being that conviction and certainty and willingness to die for your cause are not the automatically good and wonderful things people claim they are. It varies depending on what cause it is that you have conviction toward. The 9/11 terrorists are the perfect example of why that is. Blind obedience with utter certainty is not a virtue, but it is not cowardice either.
That's not tasteless. It's right on the mark, and it's important to mention it at a time when people were using the terrorist attacks as an excuse to promote the attitude that more blind obedience to your country is a happy, happy, good goal to shoot for.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I saw that first one. No government involvement.
And the only recent book burnings were to make a political point, not to censor. By the same token, the guys who burn the flag aren't trying to censor the flag, they're making a political statement. Neither burning books nor burning flags is a good idea -- both are, in fact, somewhat silly.
Also, buying a book and burning it doesn't violate anyone's free speech.
No books burned in the second one. The second one is a real example of something, but it seems like censorship isn't the goal of the government in that case. The idea it to sanction a country -- like the sanctions that were put on South Africa -- to get that country to change their policies. Exports of that country are sanctioned, which includes publications in this case. They're economic sanctions, they don't apply to ideas, they apply to money -- money from the sale of books in this case.
The US government has the option -- but not the responsibility -- to protect the free speech rights of people in other countries.
All that said, you're correct on the second one -- to a point. The government should be very careful to spell out rules that don't violate the publisher's free-speech rights.
---
Once again though, neither of these cases threatens free-speech in any significant way. They don't indicate that "the right" is out to censor, censor, censor everything. These aren't even indicative of a real problem.
The campaign-finance law is [a big part of] the problem. It needs to be repealed.
---
I guess Google is just too hard to use these days.
It just doesn't contain any recent examples of book burning for the purpose of censorship -- none that I could find anyway.
The 1st amendment is about freedom of speech, which congress may not abridge, period. Any damn thing you want to say, no ifs ands or buts. So, all the crap about commercial and political speech has basically been tacked on illegally afterward, by a politically compliant judiciary, to allow the FedGov to "regulate" far beyond its defined remit.
;-)
BTW, free speech isn't a right because of the constitution - it's in the constitution because it's a right! (Oh, and guns likewise, might as well mention while I'm already up on the soapbox
As a resident, I'm not betting on this ordinance passing or lasting. I know the "conservative" slashdoters are getting their kicks in by making fun of our seemingly "oppressive" city. But stuff like this rarely passes or hangs around for very long.
Like every major city, stupid city ordinances get proposed. But the public learns about them, and they are remedied. You can't have 3/4 of a million people living in one place and expect EVERY proposed city ordinance to be pure gold.
Some crazy computer-less hippy probably proposed this. He will be dealt with accordingly. Go about your business.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
They were not scared of the "average person", they were scared of the majority. Those are not the same thing. Many average people, in the intelligence/political savvy sense, fall outside the majority. This was also not the primary reason for the electoral college... it was an easy way to get appropriate representation, including representation for non-voters and states per se as significant entitities.
The rest is roughly true if you are a consequentialist about politics. If you take a principled approach, however, then you aren't basing your political opinions on what you think will accomplish the kind of society you want. Government becomes an oppressor the minute it goes beyond protection of individual rights. Therefore, what society is like is no business of government.
If this legislation surprises you must not have been paying attention to the board of superivors. A group not known for legislative restraint. I am a unsympathetic non-smoker but I think their park smoking ban is their classic example of overreach. I see no end to their intrusion because they appear to know how everyone should live their lives. Did you read the accounting requirements, what is the fine if you fail to get the payee's zip code?
I like the posts that say "Oh, this doesn't matter much, it'll only effect you if you mention a candidate running for local office.".
Oh, ok. It's only regulateable speech if it's about something that matters. You can say "flowers are pretty" all day long!
I don't see how this doesn't violate free speech in unspeakable ways. Scream people, this is *worse* than the DMCA.
I think what bugs me the most is that the way speech used be "regulated" here in the US is that you couldn't talk about sex except with innuendo, and you couldn't talk about God unless you had something nice to say. Now those two aren't nearly as taboo, but the Supreme Court checked off the ability to regulate political speech, technical speech is regulateable under patents and the DMCA (recall that software is inherently speech), and people are really leery of mentioning brand names in ways that haven't been vetted by a team of lawyers.
Hence corporations: the new gods. Want to say "Wal*Mart sucks?" Sure, you'll have a case if they attack you. And they almost certainly won't. But, they can conceivably attack you- that's the problem.
Scientology sort of proves the point, with many of their amazing lawsuits.
That's correct.
.the Internet. Go figure.
.ooooooh, nothing at all.
Even though the laws escape legal censure because they are aimed at the flow of money, such monies are overtly those used to purchase access to pulic forums, speech.
In a best case scenario this innately results in a database of who is spending what money on what political issues, whereas the only "correct" interpretation of the First Ammendment is that this is "noone's fucking business."
But, of course, it doesn't stop there, and, as the blurb suggests, in the worst case scenario the laws can be leveraged against speech itself.
For instance, yes, registration is voluntary, and personal speech is still "free," but that does nothing to prevent someone from prosecuting a blogger for being in violation of the law, and said blogger is unlikely to have the financial resources to defend his speech that the Washington Post does.
So the blogger is forced to shut down, or worse, bankrupted, then forced to shut down. His speech is effectively suppressed, although within the bounds of the law as she is writ.
But let us consider the case where, just as a rhetorical example, I feel so strongly about some political issue that I am willing to spend a thousand bucks of my own money to engage in what would legally be considered "electioneering."
Say I print up a bunch of flyers and distribute them myself on the street corner, of my own volition, purely as an expression of my own view that a certain candidate should prevail.
My speech is still protected, but if I do not place my name in the database and open my personal finances to legal inspection I am guilty of a crime for having done nothing but exercise a right.
I find this concept abhorent, and to evade this situation I am perfectly willing to accept the obvious fact that rich people can print up more flyers than I can. A restriction on spending money on speech is still a restriction on my speech spending, even if I don't have that sort of money available to spend on speech. This is a concept that seems a bit too subtle for most, although to me it appears writ in large, flashing neon signs.
The ultimate solution is obvious, for speech to be so inexpensive that anyone can afford to reach the world, at will, at far less expense than any reasonable restriction on "campaign financing" could entail, and thus alleviate the need for such restrictions.
What we really need is something like. .
Here on Slashdot alone this political speech that I am engaging in right now might be reaching people numbering in the millions (the lurkers outnumber the registered users), and, prorated against my annual expense for all computer communications activities (ooooooh, say, seven or eight hundred bucks a year), cost less than a penny. Adding a simple web page would increase my annual out of pocket expenses about . .
Sure, you can spend arbitrarily large amounts on a simple web page (I could, for instance, spend a half million on a stupid logo my mom would do for a pizza), but these expenditures really have nothing to do with the cost of the speech; and regulating the money spent on such has no effect on "reforming" political campaigns.
Call me old fashioned, but I believe that in America The People are still entirely responsible for the government they get.
The fact that the people are largely idiots is unregulatable.
KFG
Freedom of speech is a right. A right can not be taken away.
Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.
http://www.xpurple.com
Sorry to get offtopic, but no, it really doesn't. Spam has everything to do with volume and unsolicitedness and nothing with content; therefore, it has nothing to do with speech.
Spam does involve infringement on property rights. It screws up your servers, wastes your bandwidth, and consumes your time. But that shouldn't obscure the fact that the First Amendment protections that it does enjoy for being speech are in fact extremely limited by case law. It's advertising. Not only are they breaking laws by appropriating bandwidth and resources that aren't theirs, they're also breaking it if they make unsubstantiated commercial claims- like if they claim you can add an inch to your penis if you spend $50 for a book with "exercise instructions". There was a case last year where some perpetually-unendowed plaintiffs actually sued a spammer on exactly that basis and won.
Unsolicited email can still enjoy full First Amendment protection. If the spam had been political in nature, like a "Free So-and-So from jail" type thing, a suit like that would have been much more difficult to pursue. The only ones who could sue in that case would be the people whose time or bandwidth was wasted- they would still have a good property-rights suit.
So when is someone going to fix the real election issue - ie when entire companies, their employees and their employees kids all **donate** the maximum $1000 each? what about pushing that limit down to $1 and see if political parties can just get their message across without some stupid dumbed down air-time, is politics ever going to be about the issues instead of about knee-jerk reactions and stupid catch-phrases like 'flip-flopping' and 'desertion'
Ah never mind, im sure this will work great too!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
True. But it's not as if conservatives are any different in that respect. Party-liners only recognize threats to freedom when they come from The Other Guy.
Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.
Right you are.
And the same goes for the right to keep and bear arms. Pass any law you want. I would kill, or die, to defend my right to be armed, and that outweighs any worthless piece of paper.
The survival of freedom depends entirely on the willingness of people to resist their government, preferably non-violently, but with armed violence if necessary.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I would be very concerned if I was in a class where the teacher felt the need to simplify all politics into "left vs right".
I woul be very concerned if I was in a class where the students were citing Wikipedia.
Seriously. If you're trying to make any kind of credible argument outside of the slashdot/kuro5hin parallel universes, you need some references more legit than the wiki.
I cannot bring to words how much contempt I have for the 'blogging' phenomenon, in todays world where protocols are attacked (torrents / p2p / http - same thing, but if you label yourself you can be a target) people have labelled 'putting information on the intarweb' 'blogging' because everything is a blog nowwadays.
/. is aggregating?
When are the movies out? check the movie blog. WRONG, it isn't a log, it is a news article with a forward thinking measure.
I also hate the endless endless agregation, why even link to engaydget.com from slashdot whenthey are blogging about the same thing that
Damn damn damn. bah. *exasperating lack of ability to voice contempt for blogging* (except blogs that are retrospective personal logs - not just blogs for the same of link/comment/spam/$$$/whoring - and only those because they are really web logs)
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
If you have an issue with the quoted definition then state the problem. Ignoring the definition because it came from "the wiki" isn't logical. You need a better argument than that.
CBS and others are pissed because now their job, getting the story RIGHT, has suddenly become that much more difficult with people who are both knowledgable in such matters AND able to make that knowledge widely known.
Despite all the conspiracy theories about the "liberal media", for the most part they report stories factually -- there have only been a handful of cases where the facts don't pan out in public.
Count all of the cases (Rathergate, NYTimes, etc) and you're talking well over 99% accuracy.
Compare that to bloggers like Drudge, who repost rumors and hypothesize stories by the handful only hoping to hit an occasional truth. On the Internet, even a 50% success rate is great, and political pandering and bias ensure a steady stream of advertising.
Now, I'm not saying all Internet bloggers and fact-checkers are bogus, but I am saying that they aren't held to the same standards as the professionals in the "traditional media". Instead, I prefer to think that blogging works rather like open source software -- thousands of eyes (or voices) make many problems shallow. I support the critical review of politics, media, etc as an important part of democracy, as well as anything that makes it easier for the masses.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
One thing you should have mind is that, no matter what your local neocon operative is telling you, the Courts haven't suddenly started interpreting the Constitution because Clinton nominated a few dozens "terrorist" judges. It has always been the role of the higher courts.
Just for me to understand your line of thought, please define the words "establishment", "religion", "prohibiting", "free", "exercise", "abridging", "freedom", "speech", "press", "right", "people", "peaceably", "assemble", "petition", "Government", "redress", "grievances". For extra cookies, define both the meaning the Framers wanted them to have and the necessary adaptations to modern day. Note that I am noting trying to be difficult here - but that's what the courts are for...
Most of the support for this Idea seams to come from those that are afraid that the reader will be fooled by incorrect or malicious information, usually with the assumption that there own view is by the power of there own exceptional intelect, unfettered. This is an expansive bit of intellectual arrogance. People are not the automations that the nanny's in our society assume everyone who is not as enlightened as themselves are, and will for the most part divine the truth when it is presented. How inconvenient for the nannies that the poor little lost sheep wish to make there own decisions. This kind of legistration for our own good of coures is always a disaster. But do not expect this to defer the nannies since In the Intellectual community of liberals an ideology's catastrophic failure in the practical arena merely demonstrates its Higher Truth to its anointed. And, more importantly, the anointed's ability to perceive that Higher Truth proves - to there own satisfaction, at least- their moral and intellectual superiority to the common people who allow themselves to be deceived by mere facts. Their right to control the lives of that common populace - for it's own good, of course- follows as their natural consequence. T.S. Eliot understood such people and their priorities. Writing in 1950, he said: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."
Rewrite the Bill Of Rights, Rewrite the Constitution. Burn them for all that it matters. Those documents are nothing but paper.
None of those actions can take away my right to free speech.
That's what the grandparent's point was, the judiciary is involved in determining what passes constitutional muster and what doesn't regarding laws. Congress can pass a law saying you can speak the word blue, the president can even sign it into law, then the courts will get involved and find it unconstitutional and it will eventually be striken from the record. This is all part of the checks and balances put into the constitution to make sure things like that don't happen.
This story is about the right to comment on politics, and moderators are thumping anyone who disagrees with them. What the hell?
Fortunately, readers have the "right" to set our reading preferences to full inclusion, but I find it disturbing when long-time community members (moderators) squelch dissent in "YRO." I didn't think that's what we were about.
*sighs*
I suppose that this is an american centred board but Liberal doesn't seem to have that meaning anywhere else.
Liberalism elsewhere breaks down into 3 main areas:
1) Political liberalism - small government, freedom to do what you like within the boundary that you do not harm another or impinge on their liberty and right to expect that your liberty is not infringed by another or the state.
Also democratisation at the lowest level and a small government is a key aim. Decisions should be democratically made by those closest to the level they affect, ideally by the people themselves.
2) Economic liberalism - Free Trade (truly free trade, not the protectionism promulgated by the west under the guise of free trade), no protectionism.
3) Social liberalism - Best summarised by Lloyd George (British Liberal Prime Minister) - "Those who have liberty still need to live". Liberty is worthless if you cannot afford to feed yourself, and worthless if it is only enjoyed by those above a certain level of wealth. So the state has a responsibility to aid those who need it.
This does not mean the state supporting people, but the state helping to educate people and ensuring adequate health care is available to all who need it and giving help to get back on your feet. Provision should of course be done in such a way as it is in line with the previous two forms of liberalism meaning no state monopoly or central control and market forces harnessed wherever...
So in a system where this has been acheived, a liberal would defend the status quo. The liberal's urge for change is not change for change's sake (a dangerous thing in my opinion) but change to make the world a better place (so they believe)
What you describe as Liberalism is closer to forms of Socialism and even forms of Conservatism.
So for a lot of the world, Liberalism is not left or right... economically it is more to the right (ie low state interference in economics, largely capitalistic) socially, it varies.
The closest thing I see in the US is the Libertarians...
Liberals are often secularists due to their belief that you should not restrict another's liberty based upon your beliefs. Hence the legalisation of suicide and homosexuality were liberal moves because the basis upon which they were illegal were religious. You can be a devout Christian (or Mulsim, or Jew, or Hindu or...) and be a liberal but you don't force your beliefs on others.
The liberal reason for gun control and environmental laws are that these are things which effect others...
Guns are designed to kill so there needs to be some control over them as they will be used against other people. Gun ownership is not a right, it is a privaledge, just like owning a car.
Environmental controls: they are necessary as the world is plunged deeper into ecological crisis. The biggest misconception by many people is that environmentalism and business are opposite sides of a coin. This is simply not true. There are many opportunities for business to save and make money through environmental measures and environmental controls based upon market systems would offer even more opportunity.
On taxes: Liberals do not like to raise or cut taxes per-se. They prefer to tax those with more money (ie those who it would hurt less) more than those with little money (who are substantially harmed by taxation), but would ideally seek a simple, clear taxation system based on a person's ability to pay and with overall taxation as low as possible whilst still protecting the people of the country.
The war in Iraq is decidedly non-liberal. It is seeking to impose your values and order on another country. On others. It is also based around some suspect theory over the democratisation of arabs meaning secularisation in the manner of Attaturk in Turkey and the removal of Islam, but that's another debate.
On the philosophical outlook: Liberalism takes a less deterministic view, but tends to take a very positive view of humanity.
This of co