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.

Comments

Re:Let's see how...

[mrbrown1602]

What do you mean? Everything is Bush's fault. The Pope's death? Must've been Dubya. The liberal city of San Francisco regulating blogs? Definitely George W. The delay of Windows Longhorn? Its gotta be the Bush administration!

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[gsfprez]

>You can keep believing otherwise if you like, of course ... right up until they take you to the camps.

I'm a born-again Jesus loving Bible reading libertarian...

and as a matter of fact, yes, me and others like me are quite ready and prepared to be the first ones taken to the camps... We are already seeing the signs and are determined to not change our thoughts.

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?

there is already legal precident in Canada stating that the Bible is hate speech... we know its coming, we just don't stop loving Him and will let you know that He loves you too if you'd stop using the government to shut us up.

for all the hate you apparently have for the Pope - you _do_ know that he went to the jail of the man that attempted to kill him and forgave him... personally... not in some disattached global way...

he actually went to his jail cell, talked with him, and became friends with him... he also told everyone that he had forgiven him...

which is easier, to tell someone that shot you "you're forgiven"? or to shut up those that you disagree with?

Well, what do you know?

[jcr]

I had my suspicions that the SF city council were a pack of commies, but I didn't expect them to be so blatant about it..

-jcr

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[croddy]

webloggers continuously hammer on the idea that they want to be treated as "real journalists". and now they are.

you can't have it both ways.

and seriously, i don't care what the cost or reason is if bloggers stop posting.

Re:You keep using that word

[enomar]

No matter what you call it, political dualism is just an easy way to distract the masses with an us-vs-them argument. This works well enough to ensure that people vote along party lines instead of voting on the actual issues.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[jackspenn]

It's scary how so many liberals don't seem to notice when it is Democrats who are limiting their freedoms. Their little collective minds just seem to accept it and in some twisted way actually motivate them to support it.

Re:You keep using that word

[nathanh]

one, I hardly consider wikipedia to be an authority on a subject.

I hardly consider you to be an authority on this subject. Take a look at what you write:

there is a Liberal party in canada, and other places, though not in the US. and would you call those who promote speech codes on campuses "liberals"? the constitution is more than abortion and gay marriage. what about property rights. what about gun control. what that really is is not liberalism, but libertarianism. an idea i find somewhat attarctive.

All I got out of that paragraph was rambling incoherency.

i don't "preceive" liberalism as change. if you'd bother to read what i wrote, you;d understand that the liberal view, historically, has been one of change. for instance, liberalism meant more democratic governments, whereas conservativism meant monarchies. however, compare the US revolution with the french civil war (no, it wasn't a revolution). the big difference was the french experieince was wholly secular and more about retribution (modern day marxists, which oddly enough look alot like the french revo civil war), ours was far more faith based, or traditional. thus ours survived 230+ years, their became a terrorist state then dictatorship in a decade. we had a far more rightist outlook on people, more aristotelian, not the leftist platonic view.

That is entirely the oddest thing I have ever had the misfortune to read. You purposefully confuse the French Revolution with the US Civil War. You claim that "faith" is somehow necessary for the stability of democracy. You claim that secularism leads to terrorism and dictatorships. You write bizarre turns of phrase like "leftist platonic view" and "rightist outlook... more aristotelian". You continue to confuse liberal politics with secularism; you apparently still don't know what "liberal" means. I'm not even going to attempt to understand how a teacher in political science can write such goddamn awful English.

It frightens me that you attempt to teach this stuff to children. Your thoughts are addled beyond belief. I strongly suspect you are simply lying about your teaching role.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[mute47]

Well, I'll accept that, and remind you to thank the french for helping you out when you were fighting the british.... :D SS

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[mute47]

Well, I for one welcome our gun-toting, redneck'd, flamebaiting slashdot overlords. :D

Rights vs. Privileges

[Tackhead]

> 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.

An officer's gun pointed at your head when you refuse to pay your blogger's registration fees (or the fines for failure to pay your BRF), however, is pretty damn effective.

You have the privilege to speak. You have the right to remain silent.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Tassach]

Limiting campaign spending is limiting free speech, period

Bullshit. There are legitimate reasons to limit how campaign funds are spent which do not impact legitimate free speech.

Should a candidate be able to pay people to vote for him? Should a candidate be able to bribe a media outlet into not running his opponent's ads? Should a candidate be able to pay his opponent to dropping out of the race?

The reality is that large campaign contributions are de-facto legalized bribes. Do you honestly believe that somone who donates $100,000 or more to a politician (or to a political party) doesn't expect to get something back?