San Francisco Blog Regulation?

The Daily Pundit has an update that says the new ordinace will exempt weblogs - blogs!

Check it out here:

Daily Pundit just spoke with Sarah He, a staffer in Supervisor Sophie Maxwell's office, who said: "This amendment does not affect bloggers. It specifically exempts weblogs."

She described the interpretation of the amendment as being an attempt to regulate blogs as a "red herring." When advised that the terms "blogger" or "blogs" don't appear in the amendment, and she said that the SF City Attorney would be present at the Supervisor's meeting tomorrow to make clear that the ordinance should not be interpreted as regulating weblogs or bloggers.

Ms. He added that Supervisor Maxwell's office was highly aware that the amendment had stirred controversy on the internet and in the blogosphere.

Daily Pundit plans to attend that meeting, and, if possible, live-blog the proceedings.

MY OPINION: This is still a badly written piece of legislation, and in my opinion at the least needs a specific expemption for blogs and bloggers by name (and definition, if necessary) rather than, as it seems it is, relying on other city law that may, or may not, actually exempt the blogosphere from the piece of regulation.

In other words, keep the pressure on.

UPDATE:: Daily Pundit just spoke with Chris Jacobs, the San Francisco attorney named in one of the original reports on the Maxwell amendment as saying

Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits...

Mr. Jacobs said he had never spoken to the blogger who reported this statement, and referred me to his written reply to The Southern California Law Blog:

...First, for the record, I have not spoken to Michael Bassik about this legislation. I do not believe that the description of the legislation that he attributes to me is a correct summary of the scope of the legislation.

Mr. Jacobs advised Daily Pundit that any comments he might make today on the legislation are subject to change if the Board or the Ethics Commission chooses to alter the text of the amendment.

Posted by Bill Quick at April 04, 2005 11:37 AM

Ok, so what will the intent of the legislative action be? And when will it be codified so someone can review it? Tomorrow?