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

Loyalty Fee?

[fembots]

This is only applicable to blogs that mention candidates for local office. So I don't think you have to pay if you're blogging about your dog.

However, this might give corporates some ideas. For example, if your blogs contain certain movies, music, celebrities, you may have to start paying for the loyalty fee, like what radio stations are doing now.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Lehk228]

in other words, you have freedom of speech as long as you don't discuss politics? how long before i get my papers?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[baldass_newbie]

Boy, all the Republicans against this bill pointed out that limiting campaign contributions was tantamount to limiting free speech. (I don't recall any Democrats against this as their two biggest special interests, Unions and the Press, are exempted specifically.)

Kind of like when Clinton signed the Violence Against Women act allowing prosecutors to dig into a person's private sexual history for background.

Nothing like the Law of Unintended Consquences, eh?

And counting down for the modbombing in 3, 2, 1...

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[imkonen]

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

"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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[rekenner]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mizhi]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

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".

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Jim Logajan]

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".

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

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

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Mr2001]

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.

More importantly: Before blogs, the public might never have found out there were holes in the President's military record to begin with.

Those particular memos were only part of the story. The scandal over the fake documents has overshadowed the rest of it, including the fact that the people who were around for the original events corroborated the content of the fake memos.

And where did that story develop? Who did the research that the MSM was unwilling to do? Blogs. CBS's memos were something the bloggers hadn't seen yet (which turned out to be because they were written recently), but the story itself had been common knowledge on the blogs for ages.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[learn fast]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[DrMrLordX]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[grammar fascist]

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?

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Trepalium]

Well, how about the other side of this story. Weblogs are becoming an ever increasingly popular method for astroturfing. What better way to make it seem like there's a ground spring of popular support for something than to make a couple of blogs that support your position. Frankly, the public deserves to know if an opinion was bought or if it's genuine (I would further state that so-called non-profit think tanks should have the same obligation).

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[LittleBigScript]

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Speech ranges from "I have a dream" to spam.

I have a dream to spam?

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".

I have a dream spam in the zone?

Restrictions on commercial speech are perfectly constitutional as long as they are reasonable.

I have a resonable dream of prefectly constitutional long spam?

...to mention the diarrhea and vomiting, or when weight loss ads...

Nevermind.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Lemmy Caution]

The question then is, what is speech? After all, slander, threats, libel, bribary, and verbal contracts are all "speech," yet they aren't free.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

". . . 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

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[kfg]

That's correct.

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. . .the Internet. Go figure.

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 . . .ooooooh, nothing at all.

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

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[xpurple]

Congress shall make no law

They should have stopped there :)

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[xpurple]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[MillionthMonkey]

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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[jcr]

Are journalists or columnists in traditional media required to register with the local authorities,

They are in China!

I wouldn't worry about this measure too much. The Ninth Circuit doesn't have a whole lot of patience for this kind of crap. If it's actually passed, I give it a week before there's a federal injunction staying its enforcemet, and approximately a snowball's chance in hell of it being upheld.

Nevertheless, any SF voters should take very careful note of 1) who proposed this fascist idea, and 2) who voted for it.

-jcr

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[Maestro4k]

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.

• And that wasn't the grandparent's point. You still have your freedom of speech. Mainly what the judiciary has done over the centuries is define what speech isn't covered under the first admendment, and that is speech that infringes on other people's rights. You have the right to free speech, you do not have the right to speech that intentionally harms another person. This is no different than the right to bear arms. You have the right to bear arms, but you don't have the right to kill someone in cold blood with those arms.

• 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.

Re:Loyalty Fee?

[mzieg]

Why were the parent (and grandparent) modded Troll? When did truth, or even someone's opinion of "truth", suddenly go out of fashion on Slashdot?

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.

Let's see how...

[Anonymous Coward]

The liberals can spin this as Bush's fault. I mean, it must be his, right?

Re:Let's see how...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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!

Re:Let's see how...

[Bullfish]

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.

Re:Let's see how...

[plague3106]

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?

Re:Let's see how...

[DAldredge]

The point was to make it harder for those not in power to remove those that currently have power.

Re:Let's see how...

[mpthompson]

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.

Re:Let's see how...

[Frobnicator]

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?

It's to help prevent the stupid and lazy people from making things much worse.

Most people are too stupid/lazy to actually check things out.

We're talking about AMERICA.

• The land where less than half of eligable voters actually get off the couch to vote.
• Land where about 1/3 of those who go vote haven't decided who to vote for until they enter the booth.
• Land where most normal voters get into the booth and think something like this:
  • President? I'm voting for the RepubliCrat Party.
  • Federal Congressional reps? Again, my favorite RepubliCrat Party.
  • Governer? I am a RepubliCrat, so I'll take this one.
  • State Auditor? Never heard of any of them, I guess I'll pick this one.
  • State AG? This one has a nice looking name.
  • State Treasurer? We have a treasurer?
  • State legislature? I think I saw this sign on my street corner...
  • City council members? I think this name was on a sign, too.
  • Judges? Sure, we need judges, I guess I'll vote for some...
  • School board? I never heard any of these names before. I'll just pick a few at random.
  • Public issues? I remember the slogan "Vote No on No 2"... Or was it "No 3"? I'll just put no on both, to be safe.
• Land where some people think that NOT voting will somehow make things better.
• Land where some people hate all politicans so they just don't vote
• Land where most people don't understand the role of government in daily life.

If you had a public that didn't decide who to vote for based on how many TV and radio ads they hear, or cared about the election and didn't feel disenfranchised about the whole thing, then this type of thing would be less of a problem.

None of the major party likes how much of the vote just comes down to these random thoughts, so they want to at least make sure that they know what the others are doing.

Also, it helps those who actually care when they want to track down the ads. It helps to know: "This ad paid for by Multinational Organizations Against Public Thought."

Hope that explains it a little for you.

Re:Let's see how...

[ManoMarks]

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more of these anti-liberal hate rants yet. But let's take a moment and breathe here. One Supervisor in a left-leaning town has proposed a law. Therefore SF will vote on it. It hasn't passed yet, there isn't yet a mass round-up of bloggers, they aren't yet burning the bible and killing babies in City Hall. Bad laws get proposed all the time, and most of the time they get voted down. Chill out.

Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[moofdaddy]

This is just the start of the wave of blog regulation. A recent appeals court ruling basically said that the internet should be viewed more as a broadcast medium then a print one. The short version of this means that you will start to see a lot of regulations of this kind coming forward. The last I heard there was a similiar issue in front of seattle's board of select man as well.

Why is it always the seemingly most liberal places that seem to be so conservative on certain issues?

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[gsfprez]

>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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[gsfprez]

>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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[bonch]

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[the gnat]

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[cgenman]

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[the gnat]

Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be.

Gee, how about when Bill Maher made some tasteless remark about the WTC attackers, and Ari Fleischer responded that "people need to be careful of what they say"? For that matter, the entire right wing has been telling the other half of the country that we're all traitors for not blindly supporting the president during war (that he started).

And FYI, I'm a libertarian and 1st Amendment absolutist, but cut the bullshit. The right wing never cared about free expression until it realized that leftists could be just as oppressive as they could. It's a defensive maneuver, not a matter of principle.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[rhysweatherley]

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.

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).

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[pvc]

Yup, no criticism in the mainstream media at all.

pvc

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Monkelectric]

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.

Something similiar happened to a friend of mine at UCR a few years back. There were these *REALLY* radical lesbian types who had come to campus and been "preaching" all week -- you know the type, "I cant get a boyfriend, or I got raped, so all men are evil, lets eat pussy" kind of girls. They were male bashing on campus all week, so this frat went out and setup a table, and they each took giant cards to rate the women who passed by. They only took cards labeled 6 - 10 so nobody got rated lower then a 6. Long story short -- they were hauled before the vice dean at the complaint of the radical lesbians who had been male bashing all week, and were told they could attend a sexual harrasment workshop, OR, have their frat disbanded.. Funny thing was -- during the workshop they specifically mentioned that rating women was NOT sexual harrasment.

Another story at UCR -- happened to me personally, I got TOTALLY screwed out of a job. Now the university has an office that investigates unfair hiring practices, but ONLY as it applies to minorities. I was told since I was not a minority, woman, disabled, that they wouldnt investigate. So basically, the only group they DONT represent is -- white men.

Theres a lot of double standards out there, and im tired of being on the wrong end of em :)

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[imkonen]

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.

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Kohath]

I guess I must have imagined all of those book burnings

My memories of history only go back so far -- I'm 33 years old. I don't remember any book burnings but I remember lots of talk about them.

When were the book burnings you didn't imagine? What year? What branch of government was buring the books?

removal of the teaching of evolution in schools in favour of creationism

Removing evolution in favor of creationism is anti-free speech but removing creationism in favor of evolution is NOT anti-free speech? I don't understand. It's just one choice versus another choice. It's not a free-speech issue at all.

The Janet Jackson situation is a tougher call. Over-the-air broadcasts are regulated. I personally would remove all restrictions on TV. Within a year, everything would be done, and all taboos would be long gone. Viewership would drop like a rock. Not long after that, the industry would self-regulate, and Janet Jackson and all the rest of the TV "performers" would find themselves replaced by people with talent.

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.

That's not even remotely true. Just because you don't like morals or moral behavior (Why don't you? Were you harmed by moral behavior in the past?) doesn't mean censorship based on morals is any worse than censorship based on not offending minorities.

Aside from regulated over-the-air TV and radio broadcasts, can you come up with a single example of government censorship by the right? What publication? Which right-leaning branch of government stopped or punished the publication?

Neither side is perfect. We can disagree on whether the bad guys on the left are worse or more numerous than the bad guys on the right.

The important thing is that free speech should be absolute. That goes for all speech, even commercial speech. That goes double for campaign speech. That even goes for shouting fire in a crowded theater. Campaign-finance laws should all be repealed. Sexual harassment "hostile-workplace" laws should all be repealed. College campuses should be warned that if someone's speech offends, then the offendee has the option not to take offense, but the speaker is free to say what he wants.

Let's not play the left-right game. Let's restore free speech.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[rhysweatherley]

My memories of history only go back so far -- I'm 33 years old. I don't remember any book burnings but I remember lots of talk about them.When were the book burnings you didn't imagine? What year?

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[DunbarTheInept]

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.

Re:Not suprising given the recent court ruling

[Kohath]

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.

What's a blog?

[JeffTL]

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.

Re:What's a blog?

[usefool]

Maybe they don't want mass public participation in a particular political discussion?

Websites don't usually allow active discussion on a certain topic, but blogs are encouraging that.

Re:What's a blog?

[Glonoinha]

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.

Re:What's a blog?

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> if it's whiney and useless enough, it qualifies as a blog.

Off I go to edit wikipedia's entry for 'blog'

muhahaha

Re:What's a blog?

[Grand Facade]

"preventing political bribery"

This will not prevent bribery, it just cuts the little guy out of the loop the big boys want to protect.

Move to another jurisdiction

[ciurana]

Greetings.

I live in San Francisco. I can't believe that this is happening, but since it is, I have a simple solution: move to another jurisdiction. No, I don't mean "pack your bags and go". I mean that, in this age of interconnected servers throughout the world, hosting your 'blog in another jurisdiction isn't hard to do.

I've ran a couple of servers from a neutral, European country for years. Whenever I want to post something that might piss someone off locally I just post it out of one of those machines and under a pseudonym. While this isn't untraceable by any stretch of the imagination, it makes things hard enough for idiots chasing the poster to give up.

That's the beauty of the Internet/cyberspace. "Here" is simply wherever you want it to be.

Cheers,

E

News for news

[jfengel]

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.

Re:News for news

[great_flaming_foo]

I prefer to get my news from some organization without an axe to grind.

You must be new here...

Re:News for news

[penguinoid]

I (like you?) preffer to get my news from a source which is indifferent to the question I seek to answer. In most cases, though, I am forced to try to average out two opposing viewpoints, and the more sources I have, the better. I also apperciate that blogs can be set up by anyone and does not need to stay in anyone's favor in order to survive. If one is taken down, it can be replaced by someone else. Effectively, you just can't threaten blogs to remove their content because if it is important someone in another country will replace it. While I do not myself read blogs, I think they are an important source if you absolutely must know all the facts (and more!) about something.

Oh, and do you really preffer organizations without an ax to grind? Some people find it offensive when their viewpoint is not represented.

Click whore

[michaelmalak]

(Second time I've posted it in the past week.)

I discovered this issue 18 months ago.

Virginia blogs barred from mentioning local candidates

Re:Click whore

[utlemming]

Wow...as a Virginian that is down right offensive. The internet is the only medium where the small guy can have his voice heard, and the only place that the average joe can afford to publish his voice and then change it whenever he wants. I would like to see it challeneged in court on the ideas of free speech issues. Are newspapers required to have a "sponsored by:" and be registered? No. They are free to endorse candidates and slam the others. Out of any attempt to regulate free speech, trying to regulate political speech is the worst, and the most tyrannical. The founders of this country wanted free speech. And if you happen to say something unpopular with a politician on a website, and you are fined for not registering, then that is a form of censorship and a regulation on free speech. I think that these laws, when challenged will be struck down as gross affronts to the Constitution. Period.

Read the damn legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that slashdot members can't seem to read articles before posting their uninformed two bits? This legislation only applies to communications that are paid for by a PAC. I am a San Francisco resident and I often blog about politics, but I would be unaffected (despite several hundred hits at a time) by the legislation.

They are regulating the communications of lobbists - not individuals - an action that slashdotters have seemingly always been for. For instance, this would keep microsoft on the level if they wanted to buy a candidate in SF office.

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[mcc]

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?

Re:Read the damn legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

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.

If I'm saying things, it's speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

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 fairness doctrine

[bsandersen]

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.

Bad News for people...

[Bananatree3]

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.

Uh RTFO?...

[Momoru]

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.

Re:Uh RTFO?...

[cgenman]

Link to the PDF.

It's a general ordinance referring to "electioneering communication." Essentially, if you spend over 1,000 dollars specifically trying to promote a single candidate, in any media, you have to register this for sake of tracking election funding. And that's it. The bill defines "electioneering communication" as any communication to broadcast, cable, radio, internet, or telephone, or mailings, flyers, doorhangers, pamphlets, brochures, cards, signs, billboards, facsimiles, or printed advertisements that: refers to a clearly identified candidate for City elective office or a City elective officer who is the subject of a recall election; and is distrubuted within 90 days to an election for the City elective office sought by the candidate or a recall election regarding the City elective officer to 500 or more individuals who are registered to vote or eligible to register to vote in the election or recall election. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that any broadcast, cable, satellite, or radio communication and any sign, billboard or printed advertisement is distributed to 500 or more individuals who are eligible to vote...

This is a minor piece of campaign finance accountability. You can't buy thousands of dollars of airtime for a candidate without registering that with the city. It mentions the internet in passing, once, and no where else.

And to be eligible, you have to have spent 1,000 dollars in the 3 months prior to get a candidate elected. How much of your blog is devoted to getting a candidate elected? Is your blog costing you 4,000 dollars a year?

The ordinance makes explicit exceptions for spoken communication, news stories, communications to all members of a specific subgroup, communications during a debate, anything on bumper stickers, pins, stickers, hat bands, badges, ribbons, or other memorobelia, etc. While the 1,000 dollar threshold generally rules out having to register to be a blogger, if people were really worried about it, they could add such a thing here.

Excerpts from ordinance

[UlfGabe]

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.)

I don't like having too many laws around.

[rice_burners_suck]

The only campaign finance reform that needs to take place is to completely get rid of all campaign finance laws put into place from day one of this country's existance. Allow people to finance campaigns in any way they see fit.

However, only one law will be put into place that does make sense: Every candidate must create a report, written in plain English, that explains what that candidate intends to do during his term in office, if he gets elected. A panel of ten people or so, appointed by the government, will review these documents in advance and have the candidate correct anything that doesn't make sense. That way, there's no legalese and it won't be written in a way that nobody can understand; also, it will be short enough that people will actually make time to read it.

These documents, once finalized, will be published, by the government, into a book format, and distributed to bookstores all over the country, in much the same way that books like the September 11 report were distributed and sold to the general public. Free copies will be available at all libraries, on the Internet, to first-time voter registrants, poor people, and to whatever other groups the government deems necessary.

The availability of this information will do two very important things:

First, it will allow people to see past the bullshit of traditional campaign advertising, which generally doesn't tell anybody anything, much less serve any purpose other than making people remember someone's name, and that this person's opponent is a piece of lying, cheating rubbish. The advertising and the garbage can go on in the background, but reasonable people will buy the books, read them, and make an educated decision.

Secondly, people will be able to keep these books, and two, four, six, or however many years later, they'll be able to look at them and say, "Did this candidate for whom I voted actually do any of the things he promised, past his first day in office?" This will be great for making re-election decisions, when unsure.

Yes, there will be abuses, but in politics, everything is bullshit. Besides, it'll be great for the economy, with all the advertising moneys running all over the place by various organizations that want to screw over various other organizations.

Certainly, this means that people with less money will probably get less advertising, but did the lack of money stop things like open source software from making Microsoft scared shitless?

I say, the less laws, the better off we'll all be in every respect. And to that end, I think there should be some sort of fund set up with a nonprofit organization of lawyers, kind of like Groklaw, but for pointless, unnecessary laws. This group would dig up all kinds of laws that don't make sense anymore, or shouldn't be on the books, and it will lobby Congress to rethink these laws, remove them, modify them, etc., providing suggestions for something better. Such an organization, if well funded, would help the entire country get over a lot of crap that's on the books and probably will be forever, as we accumulate more and more and more and more and more laws.

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[cranos]

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?

Re:I don't like having too many laws around.

[Sheepdot]

Libertarians are principled, much like Republicans. However they are ardent defenders of both economic and personal rights, whereas Republicans only argue for economic rights and would like to keep junkies from their drugs, and keep gays from having a legal union.

I think a lot of issues between Libertarians and Republicans could be resolved by seperating church and morals from party planks. As a Christian myself, I think the idea of making sins illegal cheapens Christianity. If lying, adultery, and other "sins" are illegal, then the whole idea of accepting Christianity is for naught. We're supposed to be given free choice and then choose correctly; not be given the choice of jail or freedom.

Compelling people to be without sin is a whole lot different from giving them the choice.

this is just the beginning....

[headrock]

this is a direct result of mccain-feingold. the moment you decide to define 'legitimate media', for purposes of granting their political speech exception, you effectively create regulation of all media. once Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court decided that some citizens, based upon their full-time employment, enjoy free speech rights separate from everyone else, how else would you imagine that those speech restrictions be enforced?

the blogosphere cannot become complacent about intrusions like this -- its actually what MSM and our representatives prefer, largely because it enhances their own power and/or kills open source journalism. so there will be no MSM outrage over this -- they want to hold onto their roles as gatekeepers.

It is for the elected official themselves!

[tungwaiyip]

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

Same thing in BC

[dan of the north]

There is a provincial election in BC on May 17, 2005.

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

Grossly Misleading Histrionics

[LMariachi]

From a somewhat cursory examination of the legislation being proposed, it looks like the summary is substantially misrepresenting it. It says that any person who spends over $1000 on "electioneering communications" has to file a statement with the Ethics Commission detailing where that money was spent and if they received any payments from anyone for the purpose of that electioneering. Furthermore, there's a list of 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.

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.

Re:Say "Thanks" to moveon.org

[Anonymous Coward]

So, did you agree or disagree with him when he said of Jesse Jackson "the Kerry campaign has finally gotten a chocolate chip"?

He said he agreed with Rush ~50% of the time. Taking every other word, "Kerry has gotten chocolate" would seem to be a reasonable statement.

Re:Not suprising at all

[Jeffrey Baker]

Well Mr. John Morris of DeRidder, Louisiana, as much as we in San Francisco love to include alternative viewpoints, you can, quite frankly, stick your ignorant backwater opinion right back up your asshole from whence it came.

Pop quiz: which of these people is a Republican:

• McCain
• Feingold

If you answered "McCain", congratulations! You have enough political knowledge to come out on the winning side of a 50/50 chance! Your "crowd of Democrats" appears to include equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.

Quiz number 2: Which of the following Soviet dictators signed the McCain-Feingold act into law:

• Lenin
• Stalin
• Khrushchev
• Brezhnev
• Chernenko
• Gorbachev
• George W. Bush

If you selected "George W. Bush", you're right again! Beloved Father of America Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Free Speech Destruction Act into law, thereby acheiving for the Republican Party what Soviet Russia could never do: limiting political speech in America.

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?

• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas
• Tom Delay, Republican from Texas

See if you can pick the right answer.

No internet or blog mention in the whole ordinance

[anglete]

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!

The article is summed up in the title of the post.

[merpal]

"San Francisco Attempts to Regulate Blogging"

Enough said.

This is like the UN trying to regulate the entire Internet. (April Fool's post)

Re:You keep using that word

[b17bmbr]

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 Reply To Maxwell

[Ralph Spoilsport]

What part of the first amendment do you not understand?

I live in SF and I write a blog. It's not very political, but when it is, it is a very liberal blog. And if you continue on this path supporting this foolishness, and if it actually passes, I will do everything in my power to make sure you, and any supervisor who votes for this INSANE idea, are not re-elected.

This is Simply Wrong.

Rawls: Unfair, unjust, and unreasonable. Look it up.

It is unfair, because it singles out a form of free expression as a form of speech that requires regulation. Pure Hate Speech and shouting fire in a theatre are regulated free expression. Blogs have no business being regulated like that.

It is unjust, because it would treat all blogs the same. IF the blogger says "Bush is the Spawn of Satan", or "Liberals are the rotting core of Evil in the Universe" or "Go out and vote - it's important" it's all the same: political statements. This would clearly be an injustice.

and it is unreasonable, as a blog can be about a million things, and often are. Politics is often a central theme, but it is not the only. Therefore, it is unreasonable to paint semi-political yet popular blogs the same as some fire breathing partisan blog.

This legislation is also completely and utterly STUPID. Why? Because someone might live somewhere, but the blog could be hosted in FINLAND. Now: try and regulate political speech in Finland from San Francisco. Guess what: It Isn't Going To Happen. Ever.

The internet is international. Get used to it.

Worse, you have single handedly made San Francisco an international laughing stock, and more over: They Are Laughing At You.

Smooth move Maxwell.

I've always known you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this latest embarrassment is really over the top.

I will not register. Furthermore, I will cheerfully join a class action lawsuit to fight this, right to the Supreme Court, if necessary. If that fails, then me and my family will take our leave of this city. We moved here many years ago, because it was a city of free spirits. Then the dotcom idiots did their dead level best to ruin the place, and now incompetent politicians such as yourself are putting the final touches on it final implosion.

I hope you're proud.

RS

what i find interesting....

[to_kallon]

especially on /. is that, given the predictable percentage of replies on how "unfair" and "outrageous" this is, no one is using one of my favorite words: unconstitutional. the issue at hand here is not whether they should do this or not. nor is the issue that for the proposed legislation the majority of bloggers would be unaffected. the issue instead is that it is not within the legal restrictions of the government to impose this ordinance. since it is, however, restricted to campaign related blogs, there are laws which stipulate, at least in certain media i know, that you have to give each candidate, given certain criteria, equal time/space. while i still think this is superfluous, it is a damn sight better than restricting free speech. yes, i understand that they're not trying to keep people from blogging, or restrict what they blog about with this piece of legislation. but, honestly, how long will it take for similar laws to get pushed in other states? and no, not all of them will pass, but the point is that once a majority of the nation does something one way, the majority of congress will mirror it because they're from those states. this scares me in a way that i normally reserver for senator orrin hatch, but i guess he's got some competition now. i guess we'll have to see how this pans out, but i must admit i'm alarmed by a number of the articles i read now, politically speaking.

For the sake of argument...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Let's say that slashdot was hosted/incorporated in SanFran.

-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.

does slashdot count as a blog?

[the-build-chicken]

...because no one here ever presents political opinions and I'm sure many would blow over $1000 worth of man hours here a year?

Re:You keep using that word

[mcc]

I'm sure that's what the textbook or dictionary or whatnot says those words mean. I'm sure that's how you explain those words to your class. I'm even sure there must be somewhere mediums for formal debate where those words hold those meanings and are possibly even useful for expression.

Unfortunately, outside of a classroom or maybe a handful of political journals, language is defined by use, not authority. Which means academia isn't the one who gets to decide what "liberal" and "conservative" mean. The television is the one who gets to decide.

And unfortunately what the television says right now is that "left" means "liberal", "right" means "conservative", and that both of these words simultaneously hold so many different contradictory meanings that they cease to have any meaningful definition whatsoever.

At least insofar as slashdot discussions go.

So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[EnronHaliburton2004]

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.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Kohath]

Except when it comes to gay marriage,

Individual "gays" can marry the same as individual straight folks. There are no more or fewer restrictions on them. A marriage is between a man and a woman -- always has been. Gay men are welcome to marry women and gay women are welcome to marry men. It's equal rights for all individuals.

dying with dignity,

Only if you want to.

smoking marijuana,

Agree. Should be legalized.

playing D&D in the community center,

The community center is a big government boondoggle. It's controlled by the government. Politics decides what the goverment does. Politics decides what the government allows in the community center. Don't like it? Then privatize the community center (or tear it down and build a Wal-Mart, or whatever). Play whatever game you want on someone's private property. And stop building the damn big government centers so we can stop listening to people whine when the politics doesn't go their way.

or a thousand other personal issues. Then it's regulation hell.

In general, no. In general, the conservative side wants fewer regulations. How many conservatives have to tell you they want fewer regulations and smaller government before you'll belive that at least some conservatives want smaller government and fewer regulations?

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.

Who are these people you're talking about? If they're so powerful and they're such a danger to your personal freedom, then you ought to be able to name a few things you used to be able to do 20 years ago that these people have succeeded in outlawing.

Re:So-called "Conversatives" want more regulation

[Cro Magnon]

Actually though, there is a word for somebody who wants a small government and who wants to maximize individual freedom. The word is: liberal

And yet, the alleged "liberal" party has always advocated bigger and bigger government, and poking their noses where they weren't wanted. The alleged "liberals" have never cared about individual freedom, they only want freedom for left-wing values.

To be fair, the alleged "conservatives" are no better. They wanted small government only when they weren't in power. Now that they are, they're expanding an already dangerously large government even bigger.

Closing the stable door?

[bigsteve@dstc]

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.

In practice, it is likely to take weeks, months or years to track the affilitions of a "trojan" (as you put it). By the time you have untangled the web of obfuscation, the election will be well and truly over. And the "trojan" typically won't care that his/her reputation is blown.

By requiring the connections to be disclosed upfront (on pain of legal penalties), you reduce the "trojan"s influence on the election outcome. For me, the real question is whether the disclosure of just financial links would be enough to make a difference.

Re:Not suprising at all

[jmorris42]

> 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.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[bigsteve@dstc]

This is Simply Wrong.

Your knee is jerking badly, IMO.

What is the problem with registering? What is the problem with disclosing that a someone is funded to be someone else's mouthpiece? Surely, if a blogger can register (on pain of penalty) that he is NOT funded by some scumbag, then that only increases the credibility of his viewpoint.

Free speech

[katorga]

"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.

Only applies to the person who *pays you* to blog

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Get the facts by reading the actual proposal (31MB PDF):

http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/c ommittees/materials/041489.pdf

Please read the Ordinance !!

[fluffy99]

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.

Re:My Reply To Maxwell

[LMariachi]

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.

This shall not be allowed

[samantha]

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?

Re:Not suprising at all

[learn fast]

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.

Re:Just goes to show...

[tohmeiphun]

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.

Re:You knew this was coming...

[dangitman]

Conservatives were screaming from the rooftops about how "Campaign Finance Reform", specifically McCain-Feingold.

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?

Re:You knew this was coming...

[Lord Kano]

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

Re:Not suprising at all

[NatteringNabob]

>His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.

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-ds c-d95.html/

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.p rez.bush.marriage/ Bush?

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.

That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[Julian Morrison]

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 ;-)

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[MillionthMonkey]

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.

This is an absolutist view of "free speech" that is actually common on Slashdot, but doesn't make much sense in the real world. Think about what you're saying- any damn thing you want to say, no ifs and or buts. Such an interpretation would permit death threats. It would grant Constitutional protection to bribery and scams. It would undermine verbal contracts. It would prohibit laws against slander and libel. And it would grant Constitutional protection to spam- those idiots who post First Amendment arguments in every spam thread would have a point.

Which is ironic- such an absolutist definition of free speech is ahistorical for the US, to say the least.

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.

This really part of a larger discussion about the two competing views of the Constitution: as a "living document" or a "dead document". The debate concerns how much to rely on "strict constructionism", which ostensibly relies on the original intent of the poeple who actually wrote the Constitution, versus relying on an understanding based on evolving values and meanings, as applied by case law. The "living document" view has prevailed over most of the past 200 years, but recently the "dead document" position has come into vogue, advanced principally by Scalia, and vigorously promoted by many who praise it for consistency- but who may in fact be aiming to remove power from the judiciary, the only remaining branch of government still not under their influence.

The US Constitution is a Case-Law Constitution. That gives it the advantage of flexibility. It is also a very brief Constitution. Its brevity is one of its greatest weaknesses, as well as a source of strength. For example it is the oldest Constitution for its age in the world. But the brevity requires significant interpretation. Courts are put in the position, for example, of having to determine whether the First Amendment protects nudie bar dancing. If you feel that a right should not exist unless it is specifically mentioned in the Constitution, or if you get upset about "liberal activist judges", you are probably sympathetic to the "dead document" interpretation. Nudie bars are mentioned nowhere on the actual parchment.

This view has certain advantages. First of all there is consistency. It removes discretion from individual judges, by forbidding the very function that Article III mandates that they do- interpret the Constitution. (Effectively, Congress would unofficially take over this job.)

However, it has the disadvantage of being false on its face. The mechanism for the citizenry to amend the Constitution is written right into it. As can be seen in contemporaneous writings, it was obvious that members of the Convention expected, and even hoped, that the Constitution would not be a static document, but that it would be amended by the people through legal means, sometimes as Constitutional amendments, and often as the result of judicial challenges (to refute the concept of "activist judges"). For example many members of the convention would obviously have been thrilled to see that there is no longer slavery in the US. This despite language in the Constitution explicitly discussing the international sale of slaves.

BTW, free speech isn't a right because of the constitution - it's in the constitution because it's a right!

Truer words never spoken.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[mmeister]

Silly rabbit -- the interpretation of the Constitution that says you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater or that you can't say "Kill the " to incite a riot is not "illegal". It could, maybe, be viewed as unconstitutional.

"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."

The amendment does not say "Congress shall make no law abridging speech", just the "freedom of speech".

So is requiring a disclosure of who paid for your "opinion" an abridgment of freedom of speech? I don't think so. It doesn't dictate what you can and cannot say. I think it benefits the American people to know.

Otherwise, you could have some radical right-wing political element create a news channel and claim it is "fair and balanced" and deem everyone who doesn't agree with them a "liberal". We wouldn't want that sort of thing to happen in this country.

Re:That is garbage which was tacked on afterwards

[MillionthMonkey]

Sending e-mails advertising a product is free speech. Flooding e-mail servers is akin to vandalism.

Free speech and vandalism are not mutually exclusive. Graffiti may carry a Constitutionally protected message, but the paint on the wall makes it vandalism no matter what the graffiti says.

I just had to repost this at +2:

Amendment I makes no distinction between political and commercial speech, and back when it was written, there was plenty of commercial speech.

Any judge who tries to make a distinction needs to be killed.

For supporting laws banning false or misleading advertising? This was a precedent set in 1942.

Even on Slashdot, these people are now getting so emboldened as to openly call for the assassination of judges.

It won't pass, or if it does, it won't last

[Aqua OS X]

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.

God, sex, and corporations.

[cfalcon]

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.

After solving all other problems...

[t_allardyce]

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!

I feel the same way about gun rights

[ccmay]

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.

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

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[brianber]

So, the phrase "right of the people," means the state? Or, is that only when followed by: "to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," but when followed by: "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," they mean an individual right? Am I understanding this correctly? I get confused when we change the definition of a phrase within the same document.

In the mean time, how many times a DAY do those same weapons get turned against the general population in the commission of crimes? Dozens? Hundreds? Yeah, something like that.

Care to site you source, or is that just the typical hysteria fomented by Handgun Control Inc. and their friends? I challenge you come up with and cite a statistic to back-up that claim that doesn't come from any "gun safety" or "gun control" group.

Re:I feel the same way about gun rights

[Tassach]

Reads to me like you have the right to join a well regulated militia.

I suggest you read Federalist 29, Concerning the Militia, if you have any doubt as to what the Founding Fathers meant by the words "well-regulated":

To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.

It's crystal clear that the historical context of "Well regulated" means "trained and equipped".

Re:You keep using that word

[RobotRunAmok]

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 blame 'bloggers'

[tod_miller]

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.

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 /. is aggregating?

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)

Re:I blame 'bloggers'

[adzoox]

I have switched the majority of my site [jackwhispers.com] to a blogger BLOG [jackwhispers.blogspot.com]. It's been a way for my site to grow easily. It's also easy to gain revenue from BLOGs that otherwise might not have been successful. I also can post small or insignificant posts that relate to my site's content, get reader feedback, and allow people who disagree with my editorials to return comment.

Your engadget reference is a good example of this ... until someone here on slashdot pointed it out to me, I didn't realize that Weblogs Inc was formed for the specific purpose of generating ads on BLOGs. Engadget is such a BLOg and the most successful of Weblogs Inc ventures.

Re:You keep using that word

[nathanh]

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.

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.

Darn the liberal media

[fprefect]

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.

Quite the free thinker!

[lysium]

Ah, the spectre of the Liberal Media rises again. Look, if you believe that the media is not "neutral" it is because society itself is not "neutral" in a way that pleases you. You want everyone to be more like you, so you complain fiercely when views other than your own are labelled "objective" or "neutral."

Go back to your think-tank talking points and find some that weren't penned decades again, O trollish one.

Could be so simple, couldn't it?

[Pac]

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...

Got to love the Nannies out there

[Visigoth21]

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."

RTF Ordinance

[kokoloko]

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.

I actually READ the ordinance...

[spiritraveller]

and yes, it is BAD. No, the slashdot summary is not misleading, it is dead on.

The ordinance defines "electioneering communication" as mentioning a specific candidate for city office within 90 days of the election.

It requires ANYONE engaging in "electioneering communication" to include in the communication "Paid for by ...".

It also requires anyone who spends more than $1000 a year on such communications to file a report with the city UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY.

There are exemptions for person to person conversation and for major media outlets, such as newspapers and tv news organizations. It is very clear that the ordinance covers bloggers.

Recent Supreme Court decisions have distinguished spending from speech. It seemed like a logical distinction at the time, but we now are seeing the results of that sort of thinking... There is no a HUGE loophole in the First Amendment. Any form of speech other than direct person to person communication requires spending at least a little money.

Oh well, 200 years of (mostly) Free Speech is better than anyone else has pulled off yet.

"Well-regulated militia"

[StupidKatz]

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.

Re:You keep using that word

[twem2]

*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