Tag: california

Federal Judge Blocks California Online Age-Checking Law as Unconstitutional

A federal judge has granted an injunction blocking a California law that would force online businesses and social media platforms to estimate the ages of people visiting their sites and protect children from seeing content that might cause harm, stating that the law likely violates the First Amendment and would likely lead to online government-fueled censorship.

The law in question, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), is one of the recent crop of bills seeking to “childproof” the internet by either demanding age verification checks of users or by locking away content. CAADCA, passed in 2022 unanimously by the state legislature and supported by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, requires every business in the state with an online component to create a report showing how any new good or service they provided would be accessed by children and investigate and account for any sort of “harms” children might face. Businesses that are not in compliance with the law face fines of up to $2,500 per violation.

NetChoice, a trade organization representing tech firms, sued earlier this year to try to block the law. In NetChoice v. Bonta, the trade organization argued that this overly broad law violates the Constitution by “enact[ing] a system of prior restraint over protected speech using undefined, vague terms, and creat[ing] a regime of proxy censorship, forcing online services to restrict speech in ways the State could never do directly.” In short, the end result of the law would lead to businesses and online platforms having to censor content in order to keep children from seeing it, even though a lot of this content is likely to be protected First Amendment speech.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, agreed and blocked the state from enacting the law, which was scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2024.

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In win for AI, Newsom vetoes driverless truck ban

Gov. Gavin Newsom made his choice Friday when confronted with a bill that pitted organized labor versus the tech and business community promoting artificial intelligence. 

Newsom chose AI. 

He vetoed AB316, which would have required a human driver to be present in the deployment of driverless heavy-duty trucks for at least five years as the state evaluates their safety. 

Newsom called the proposed legislation “unnecessary” for the oversight of autonomous trucks,  writing in his veto message that “existing law provides sufficient authority to create the appropriate regulatory framework.” 

Newsom’s veto goes against the wishes of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, which has 250,000 members in the state and whose president, Sean O’Brien, traveled to California this week for rallies in favor of the legislation. Union officials said the measure eventually could put  350,000 drivers out of work in California.

In his veto message, Newsom said he was directing the state’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency “to lead a stakeholder process next year to review and develop recommendations to mitigate the potential employment impact of testing and deployment of autonomous heavy-duty vehicles.”

The veto drew a swift rebuke Friday from Lorena Gonzalez, leader of the 2.1 million-member California Labor Federation, who called out Newsom for siding with his business world allies over his friends in labor. 

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Federal Judge Blocks California ‘High-Capacity’ Magazine Ban for Second Time

U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez blocked California’s ban on ammunition magazines holding more than ten rounds on Friday.

This is the second time Benitez has issued a decision against the ban.

On June 29, 2017, Breitbart News reported that Benitez blocked the ban to prevent “otherwise law-abiding” citizens from being criminalized.

He noted that the ban takes away Second Amendment rights “and amounts to the government taking people’s private property without compensation.”

On Friday, Benitez issued a decision against the ban again by following the Bruen (2022) framework, which requires tradition to be on the side of the gun control in question.

KQED quoted Benitez noting, “There is no American tradition of limiting ammunition capacity.”

He noted that, historically speaking, detachable magazines “solved a problem with historic firearms: running out of ammunition and having to slowly reload a gun.”

He added, “There have been, and there will be, times where many more than 10 rounds are needed to stop attackers,” Benitez wrote. “Yet, under this statute, the State says ‘too bad.’”

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Gas station sparks backlash over sign banning Romani women

A Chevron gas station in Rowland Heights, California has triggered outrage over an ostensibly anti-shoplifting sign that banned women of Romani descent from the premises.

“The sign contained two ethnic slurs commonly used to portray Romanis as traveling thieves,” reported Nicole Comstock for CBS News. “‘It’s been used against them as a weapon frequently,’ said Hemet resident Anya Regewell. ‘Much like the N-word is to Black people, Gypsy that’s what that is to Romani people from Europe.’ Regewell said a Romani community member sent her a picture of the sign. Since then, she has tried to call the gas station and took the issue to social media, hoping that it will get the hateful sign removed.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits businesses from excluding people based on racial or ethnic categories.

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He told on ‘badge bending’ and was fired. Now, former Vallejo cop will get nearly $1 million

A former police captain who alleges in a lawsuit that he was fired for whistleblowing on his colleagues and exposing corruption within the Vallejo Police Department will receive nearly $1 million in a settlement with the city.

John Whitney and his attorney, Jayme Walker, agreed to the settlement last week, in which the city will be required to pay Whitney $900,000 as well as all costs, liens and attorney fees.

“I feel vindicated by the settlement agreement because of the amount,” Whitney told The Times in an interview Monday. “You don’t settle for nearly $1 million if you did everything correct.”

Whitney alleges in a lawsuit filed against the city and his former employers in 2020 that he was fired after he told Vallejo City Manager Greg Nyhoff, Mayor Bob Sampayan and then-City Atty. Claudia Quintana that members of the Police Department were bending the corners of their badges to commemorate every time an officer killed a civilian.

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California To Drop ‘Medical Misinformation’ Law After Judge Blasts ‘Dramatic Examples’

California has quietly announced it’s ditching Gov. Gavin Newsom’s draconian ‘Covid-19 medical misinformation’ law, which would threaten the licenses of doctors who don’t agree with “scientific consensus” on various issues.

The law, AB 2098, was signed into law by Newsom last year. In response, five doctors alleged it to be unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the US constitution.

The five doctors, Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Aaron Kheriaty, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi, argued that the law prevents them from providing information to their patients that may contradict what the law permits or prohibits. They also alleged the law was used to intimidate and punish physicians who disagreed with prevailing views on COVID-19.

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Ninth Circuit rebukes lawmakers, grants injunction against California law targeting gun marketing

A California law ostensibly aimed at restricting the marketing of firearms to minors infringes on the free speech rights of adults, according to a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In its ruling handed down on Thursday morning, the panel vacated a lower court decision denying an injunction against the law’s enforcement and delivered a resounding win for both First and Second Amendment advocates.

Writing for the majority, Judge Kenneth Lee ruled that the law forbidding marketing and advertising firearms that “reasonably appear to be attractive to minors” is likely to infringe on the First Amendment, given that the statute is so broadly written that advertisements aimed at adults who can lawfully purchase a firearm would be swept up in its provisions.

While California has a substantial interest in reducing gun violence and unlawful use of firearms by minors, its law does not “directly” and “materially” further either goal. California cannot straitjacket the First Amendment by, on the one hand, allowing minors to possess and use firearms and then, on the other hand, banning truthful advertisements about that lawful use of firearms. There is no evidence in the record that a minor in California has ever unlawfully bought a gun, let alone because of an ad. Nor has the state produced any evidence that truthful ads about lawful uses of guns—like an ad about hunting rifles in Junior Sports Magazines’ Junior Shooters—encourage illegal or violent gun use among minors. Simply put, California cannot lean on gossamers of speculation to weave an evidence-free narrative that its law curbing the First Amendment “significantly” decreases unlawful gun use among minors. The First Amendment demands more than good intentions and wishful thinking to warrant the government’s muzzling of speech.

California’s law is also more extensive than necessary, as it sweeps in truthful ads about lawful use of firearms for adults and minors alike. For instance, an advertisement directed at adults featuring a camouflage skin on a firearm might be illegal because minors may be attracted to it.

While the state of California had argued that the statute didn’t violate the First Amendment given the broader latitude given to regulations on commercial speech, the panel was unswayed, with Lee writing that even under a lowered standard of intermediate scrutiny the law fails to pass constitutional muster in light of the fact that the “state has made no showing that broadly prohibiting certain truthful firearm-related advertising is sufficiently tailored to significantly advance the state’s goals of preventing gun violence and unlawful firearm possession among minors.”

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New poll finds California voters resoundingly oppose cash reparations for slavery

California voters oppose the idea of the state offering cash payments to the descendants of enslaved African Americans by a 2-to-1 margin, according to the results of a new poll that foreshadows the political difficulty ahead next year when state lawmakers begin to consider reparations for slavery.

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Times, found that 59% of voters oppose cash payments compared with 28% who support the idea. The lack of support for cash reparations was resounding, with more than 4 in 10 voters “strongly” opposed.

“It has a steep uphill climb, at least from the public’s point of view,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers created California’s Reparations Task Force in 2020 with the goal of establishing a path to reparations that could serve as a model for the nation. After two years of deliberations, the task force sent a final report and recommendations this summer to the state Capitol, where Newsom and the Democratic-led Legislature will ultimately decide how the state should atone for slavery.

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CALIFORNIA MIGHT LEGALIZE MAGIC MUSHROOMS

A BILL TO legalize psychedelics is on a trip to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.

On Thursday, the California Senate gave final approval to a bill legalizing certain psychedelics for people who are 21 or older. If Newsom signs the bill, it will go into effect in 2025 and make it legal to possess or grow plant-based psychedelics, including psychedelic mushrooms.

Newsom has not said where he stands on the bill, but he has mostly been a critic against the war on drugs, having been a leading voice to legalize cannabis in California and reduce nonviolent offenses like drug crimes to misdemeanors rather than felonies. Last year, however, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed three California cities to operate supervised drug-consumption sites in efforts to combat fatal overdoses.

“We respect the legislative process and don’t typically comment on pending legislation,” a Newsom spokesperson told Marijuana Moment on Thursday. “The governor will evaluate the bill on its merits when it reaches his desk.”

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HOW CALIFORNIA COPS EXPLOIT LEGAL GRAY AREAS TO CONTINUE THEIR WAR ON CANNABIS

Zeke Flatten was driving southbound on Highway 101 in Northern California in December 2017 when he was pulled over by an unmarked SUV with flashing emergency lights.

Two officers clad in green, military-style garb and bulletproof vests approached Flatten’s vehicle but didn’t identify themselves. After asking Flatten if he knew how fast he was going, one of the men told him they suspected he was transporting cannabis, according to court documents. Flatten was immediately suspicious.

“He never mentioned anything else about the reason, probable cause, why he stopped me,” Flatten said in an interview with The Appeal.

The officers were correct, however: Flatten, a film producer and former undercover cop who’d temporarily relocated to Northern California, had three pounds of marijuana, including a few rolled joints, in the car—worth over $3,000 at the time. Flatten says he was working on a number of cannabis-related projects and was driving to a lab to test the weed, which he’d hoped to sell legally.

Just over a year before the stop, California had voted to legalize the personal cultivation and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana with the passage of Proposition 64. Under the measure, possession of larger amounts of cannabis was reduced from a felony offense to a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months of incarceration and a maximum $500 fine.

But marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, classified as a Schedule 1 substance alongside drugs like heroin, LSD, and MDMA, known as Ecstasy. When the officers identified themselves as members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a federal agency, Flatten said he started to realize something was off.

“There’s no patches, there’s no badges, there’s no name tags,” Flatten said.

Flatten says he offered to show the officers his medical marijuana card, which should have allowed him to have the cannabis. But they didn’t want to look at the card. He figured if the agents believed the marijuana was illegal, they’d take it and provide him a receipt for the seizure, which would give him a chance to argue his case in court, Flatten said.

Instead, they proceeded to confiscate the cannabis from the back of Flatten’s car without running his name for warrants, or issuing a traffic ticket, court summons, or even documentation of the seizure, Flatten said. The officers did tell him that he might be getting a letter from the federal government. But he never did.

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