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On April 28th, hundreds of women and men gathered at the capitol building in Sacramento, held a two hour rally, then marched through the downtown district. Speakers said that California needs to be at the forefront to keep the tide from turning against abortion and other women's rights. Protesters insisted that the war on women is very real, and vowed to be heard in the legislature and on the streets.
Congress is currently considering HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a bill that purports to protect the United States from “cyber threats”. This legislation would create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA, as the bill is called, passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday internet users and share it with government agencies without a court order.
Internet privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press say that CISPA uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government. It would hand the reins of America’s cybersecurity defenses to the National Security Agency and allow data shared with the government to be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.
Corporations including Facebook and Microsoft say they support the bill; Facebook is coming under criticism from many of its users for doing so. The House plans to bring CISPA to a vote in the coming weeks.
Draconian Cyber Security Bills |
Raging Grannies Call Out Facebook on its Support of CISPAl |
Stop Cyber Spying: A Week of Action Against CISPA
Demonstrators shut down the entrance of the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney held a fundraising dinner on March 26th. Several protest groups coordinated to produce a show of anger aimed at the presidential hopeful and wealthy attendees of the event. One group erected a giant Etch A Sketch outside the hotel entrance, making light of a recent Romney aide's gaffe; others mocked billionaire supporters of his campaign by wearing faux fur and pearls and lifting glasses of champagne.
Occupy Redwood City, Occupy San Jose, and Occupy San Francisco members joined labor groups on the sidewalk with drums and other musical instruments to augment loud chants. Occupy Oakland members came from the east side of the Bay to the peninsula event and shouted as the fundraiser guests arrived, "Dinner is over! Go home!
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California's Proposition 8 ban on same sex marriage was ruled unconstitutional by a three member panel of judges from the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Judge Smith dissented. The panel majority stated that California voters violated the 14th Amendment of the Federal Constitution when voting for Prop 8.
D. Boyer wrote, "I was live on scene in front of the Federal Court when the decision was out. San Francisco is ground zero for same sex marriage, so folks are happy. Additionally the panel majority stated that California's Proposition 8 'served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California", and it officially would have reclassified their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite sex couples.'"
The panel of judges also denied the motion by Prop 8 proponents to vacate the judgement by then Chief Judge Walker because he was also gay.
San Francisco's City Attorney held a press conference inside San Francisco's City Hall to talk about the decision and what it means for Gay and Lesbian Californians. They stated that they are getting ready and changing marriage forms, but that until the stay is lifted same sex couples in California still cannot marry. They said it may take months before same sex marriage is allowed to resume in California.
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One of the major issues now confronting the City of Santa Cruz, and residents outside the city limits, too, is whether or not the City should partner with the Soquel Creek Water District to construct a $100 million dollar desalination plant to meet the need for water during drought periods in the City of Santa Cruz water service area, and to help relieve the threat of groundwater overdraft in the Soquel Creek Water District.
An initiative measure is being proposed in the City of Santa Cruz, that would amend the Santa Cruz City Charter to provide City voters with an opportunity to vote on desalination before it is approved, permitted, or funded. The idea is to let the voters make the final decision.
A kickoff party for the Right to Vote On Desalination initiative will be held on Sunday, February 12th, at 418 Front Street in Santa Cruz starting at 2pm. It will be catered by India Joze, with music and painting by Rus Brutsché, and will feature Adam Scow, from Food and Water Watch, speaking on “How We Won the Right to Vote on Desal in Marin” and Barbara Sprenger, co-organizer of Felton Friends of Locally Owned Water (FLOW). Felton FLOW successfully wrested ownership of their local water system from multinational giant, CAL-Am Water.
Read more, including the Text of the Charter Amendment | See also: Felton Prevails in Six-Year Fight to Acquire Water System from Cal-Am and RWE || Desalination and the Alternatives: It's Up to the Community || Plan B: The Alternative to Desalination || Invitation-Only Meeting Held to Promote a Desalination Plant in Santa Cruz || Decision Day for City Council on Desalination
The City of Fresno has announced a plan for the massive evictions of the homeless, starting at 7 a.m. on Thursday, October 27th. Speaking in front of City Hall on Wednesday, homeless people and their allies said the planned eviction was heartless and cruel. Community Alliance newspaper editor Mike Rhodes said “destroying their modest shelter and chasing them with a stick from one vacant lot or sidewalk to another will do nothing to help their lives or to end homelessness in Fresno.”
Alex Darocy writes: Public officials from the past and present filed into the Museum of Art and History Monday night [September 19] as Mike Rotkin and Cynthia Mathews, describing themselves as part of "the Sustainable Water Coalition," hosted a private, invite-only informational meeting in support of the proposed desalination plant project. The desal project, which so far has cost $6 million dollars to be studied, has been aggressively promoted by officials, and this private meeting has brought up issues of governmental transparency. This meeting punctuates a new era of suspicion concerning local politicians: during the planning of the desal project there have been conflicts of interest, including the selection of the URS Corporation to author the EIR [Environmental Impact Report], as well as recent ethics violations on the part of city officials.
Mike Rotkin was nowhere to be seen inside, and it was unclear if any of those at the meeting were also members of the "Sustainable Water Coalition." When questioned through email, Rotkin and Mathews have so far not disclosed who has funded the group (and paid for renting the museum) and they have not disclosed the names of any of the other members of the coalition, or if there are even any other members at all. At times, the meeting had the feel of a private club filled with public officials, and clearly a group of them there had politically bonded over the issue and were using the event to further those connections.
Private Desal Meeting - Report, Photos, Background | City of Santa Cruz Consultant Verifies Decline in Drought Risk |  October 3: Water Commission Meeting
For protesting on the county steps against Santa Cruz laws that make it illegal for the homeless to sleep at night, homeless activists Gary Johnson and Attorney Ed Frey were sentenced to 6 months in jail on June 10th. Bail was set for Ed Frey at $50,000. Their only act of civil disobedience was sleeping. Revealing the political nature of the draconian sentences, Judge Gallagher told Gary Johnson that he “could get some sleep in jail” before they were dragged away in chains for their 6 month sentences.
In the culmination of a week of protests against proposed budget cuts to education, protesters gathered in the state capitol building in Sacramento on May 9th. Demonstrators chanted slogans such as "They say cut back, we say fight back." Students lead the way and two hundred others joined in, including teachers and community leaders. Students had come from up and down the state, including a large contingent from UC Santa Cruz. Following the chanting, sixty-five protesters committed nonviolent civil disobedience by sitting down and refusing to leave the Rotunda after the Capitol closed to the public for the day. All sixty-five were arrested. Those arrested were held overnight, and were kept with their hands handcuffed behind their backs for the first six hours of their detainment. Only three of those arrested were charged with resisting arrest, while the rest were charged with misdemeanor trespass.
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Previous Related Indybay Feature:
May Day 2011 for Labor and Immigrant Rights
A new film, Medical Cannabis and Its Impact on Human Health, exposes the lies about the medical use of marijuana that led the San Diego City Council to enact a virtual ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. Director James Schmachtenberger, who works at a local dispensary, appeared with the film on April 30th at a showing sponsored by Activist San Diego. The film is a bit dry, and even Schmachtenberger describes it as not especially entertaining, but it lays out the facts about marijuana's medical uses and makes the case for allowing the substance to be used to treat disease and preserve health.
The San Diego City Council spent nearly six hours on March 28th listening to public input and debating a proposed permit process for medical marijuana dispensaries. The Council passed a measure that dispensary members and their supporters say amounts to a virtual ban. Though public speakers in support of medical marijuana far outnumbered opponents at each stage of the process, the Council enacted an ordinance that would make it virtually impossible for dispensaries to locate anywhere in the city of San Diego.
Because of agricultural discharges from Salinas Valley farms, the lower Salinas River has been found to have one of the highest levels of nitrates of any river in the world. During the summer, the river is bright green with a thick mat of toxic algae. The fertilizer doesn’t just impair the Salinas River. When the first rain comes in the fall, a huge pulse of sediment and fertilizer flushes out into Monterey Bay. This pulse has been associated with toxic algae blooms that sicken or kill sea otters, sea lions, and sea birds.
On March 3rd, the Seaside City Council voted unanimously to outlaw PG&E's wireless smart meter installation within city limits. On March 8th, Lake and San Luis Obispo Counties joined the list, calling upon the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to stop installing wireless meters until more is known about short and long term health impacts and potential privacy violations. Residents from all over California will attend the CPUC meeting on March 10th starting at 9am at 505 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.
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