Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance (PDF) 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.

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, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.

The entire Board is set to vote on the measure on April 5th, 2005. I wonder if they'll be forced to register their own blogs!

The legislation was written by Supervisor Sophie Maxwell.

The Federal Register today published its official Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the regulation of political activities over the internet -- PDF   -   - HTML.

Comments are due on June 3, and as I've previous urged, if you have any comment you want to make to the FEC regarding these regulations, you do not need to be a lawyer or have a lawyer. It is your right and obligation as a citizen to email your comments directly to the FEC at internet@fec.gov, and I strongly encourage you to do so.

1. Identification of Internet communications which might be construed as both "public" and "public political advertising," specifically when advertisements are placed on websites;

2. Invite comments on the definitions and scopes of "general campaign activity" and "public communication," specifically in regards to the Internet;

3. The use of political disclaimers on committee websites, advertisements, and mass e-mails;

4. Exempting certain volunteer activities on the Internet from being "contributions to" or "expenditures of" political campaigns.

5. Determining the scope of exception to campaign regulations for Internet media activity.