California Video Game Law, Once Again, Found Unconstitutional

from the try-try-again dept

Some California politicians keep running into a pesky obstacle: The US Constitution. Despite court after court across the country finding bans on sales of violent video games to minors to be unconstitutional, "think of the children" politicians continue to try and implement them. In California, legislators passed such a ban and, predictably, it got tossed out by a court. Led by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state appealed the ban to an appeals court, which -- you guessed it -- has ruled that it's unconstitutional. But the bill's author is undeterred. He wants the state to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court and waste more of the cash-strapped state's resources to find out what we already know, but apparently bears repeating: these video game bans are unconstitutional.

Filed Under: bans, california, constitutional, violent video games

Guy In Silicon Valley Buys Billboard Ad Against CA's Hands-Free Mobile Phone Law

from the one-way-to-protest dept

I'm not really sure that this is an effective use of money to protest a law, but one guy, Grant Paulson, has shelled out $10,000 of his own money to buy space on a billboard in Palo Alto to protest California's new requirement for using a hands-free device if you're using a mobile phone while driving. The billboard's message is directed at state Senator Joe Simitian of Palo Alto -- who introduced the legislation in the first place. In part, it reads:

Senator Joe Simitian: Your cell phone law sucks. Amazing how 1 man's bad idea can screw over & inconvenience millions of people in CA. Let's overturn this law in the next election & protect what rights we still have left."

It may be getting attention, but Simitian doesn't seem particularly persuaded by it, saying that it "put a smile on my face" and calling it "a hoot." Also, it looks like most of the people the San Jose Mercury News asked about it weren't impressed by the billboard -- with some noting that they have no problem with the hands-free rule, and others complaining that the billboard itself was distracting because it contained too many words (seriously). Even Simitian noted: "My only concern is that someone might be rear-ended." That seems pretty ridiculous, frankly. Shouldn't drivers know better than to get distracted by a billboard with "too many words."

Hell, perhaps next Simitian will propose a law banning billboard with too many words as a new "driver distraction" that must be stopped. I'm sure I know one guy who would buy a billboard protesting that law...

Filed Under: california, grant paulson, hands free, joe simitian

More Votes Lost By Diebold; Discovered By Unique Voting Transparency Project

from the reliable,-huh? dept

For years and years Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) had always vehemently denied that its e-voting or optical vote scanning machines had any problems -- despite mounds and mounds of evidence of problems. We were shocked, this past summer, when the company finally admitted to a glitch with some of its machines, but the company still downplayed the significance of this, claiming that it didn't believe the glitch (which loses votes) had actually impacted any elections.

Yet, even after this glitch was officially revealed, in the election just last month, we're now finding out that Diebold machines caused 200 lost votes in an election in California. Even worse, no one would even know about this at all if it weren't for a highly ambitious and very unique program set up by some voting activists to ensure there was real transparency. They convinced the local government to let them scan every single ballot and put it online for anyone to view. It was that separate process where they discovered the ballot counts didn't match, and that Diebold seemed to show absolutely no records of the missing ballots, despite having scanned them.

Makes you kinda wonder how many other areas lost votes that absolutely no one knows about because they didn't have such a system in place, huh?

Filed Under: accuracy, california, e-voting, elections, lost votes, transparency
Companies: diebold, premier voting

California Schools Not Using $200 Million From The Microsoft Settlement

from the not-a-priority? dept

A few years back, in settling a civil lawsuit against Microsoft for its monopolistic practices, Microsoft agreed to pay out $250 million to California schools, in the form of vouchers. Now, there are some who might point out that this sort of "settlement" makes good business sense, in that many will use the vouchers on PCs with Microsoft software, thereby getting a new generation of kids hooked on Microsoft products (it's worth pointing out that the vouchers can be used on non-Microsoft software as well). However, that's hardly the biggest issue, apparently. Instead, people are realizing that the vast majority of the $250 million is not being used by the schools. Some are pointing out that their budgets are being slashed, and since they have to pay for the equipment upfront and then request money back later, it's just too much trouble. Others are saying it just hasn't been a priority, even though they know the money is available.

Filed Under: antitrust, california, schools, settlement
Companies: microsoft

Governator Wasting More CA Taxpayer Money On Unconstitutional Violent Video Game Ban

from the terminate-this-wasteful-spending dept

At last count, at least 10 states had passed laws banning the sale or rental of violent video games to children, and every single one of them has been thrown out as unconstitutional. At this point, any state that passes such a law is knowingly throwing away taxpayer money to defend the law in court -- and, for the most part they're doing it to pander to the electorate, so they can talk about how they "protected the children" despite more and more evidence that violent video games aren't a threat to kids.

Perhaps the most bizarre of all of these state laws is the one in California, where our governor starred in numerous violent films. Yet, Schwarzenegger has been at the forefront of supporting this law. After a lower court followed all those other states in throwing out the law as unconstitutional, the Schwarzenegger administration quickly appealed, and the new case is set to begin this week, with most noting that it's unlikely that California will somehow buck the trend and get the law approved. Instead, we get a waste of taxpayer money (in a state that's going bankrupt) so that an action hero of a ton of violent films can claim he's "protecting the children" from viewing a little show violence.

Filed Under: bans, california, constitutional, violent video games

California Interested In Open Source E-Voting Solutions

from the good-for-them dept

With so many problems with various e-voting systems, many have wondered why various state governments don't simply require any e-voting system to be open sourced. It makes a tremendous amount of sense. Any trustworthy voting process needs to require transparency in how the votes are recorded and counted. Letting a hidden algorithm do the counting makes no sense. Open source e-voting code would be open to scrutiny, and would almost certainly lead to fewer problems and greater security. Yet, for some reason, election officials have always bought into the e-voting vendors' false claims that open source code is somehow dangerous to an election.

It looks like that may be changing. California's Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, who has been a major critic of e-voting vendors, is now saying that open sourcing e-voting systems could help fix many of the flaws found in today's systems. It wouldn't solve all the problems, but it would be a huge step forward.

Filed Under: california, debra bowen, e-voting, open source

California: We Charge People To Read Our Laws For The Benefit Of Californians

from the sign-of-the-times dept

Back in April, we wrote about how the state of Oregon was threatening Carl Malamud, an activist who has been working hard for years to get public content more widely available to people online, for daring to publish Oregon's laws online. The state claimed copyright, not over the laws, but over the presentation of the laws, which Malamud had scanned. After the public outcry over this, Oregon backed down, and Malamud has continued his efforts. A bunch of folks have been submitting this Santa Rosa Press Democrat story all about Malamud's efforts, with a specific focus on California -- which similarly claims copyright on the presentation of its laws and standards.

California's defense of trying to limit such a display of the laws seems pretty ridiculous:

"We exercise our copyright to benefit the people of California," said Linda Brown, deputy director of the Office of Administrative Law, which manages the state's laws. "We are obtaining compensation for the people of California."

In other words, we hide the laws you have to obey from you in order to get more money into the state's coffers. That hardly seems like a reasonable rationale for the efforts. Hell, based on that rationale, wouldn't it make sense not to post any speed limit signs? After all, all the speeding tickets from ignorant drivers would help "obtain compensation for the people of California." Besides, as we all should know, the purpose of copyright isn't to "obtain compensation for the people of California" but to encourage the creation of new works. Is copyrighting the presentation of laws helping to create new... laws? That doesn't seem right.

In the meantime, Malamud is just going to keep posting the laws and making them easier than ever for people to actually know what laws they're probably breaking all the time. It sounds as though he's hoping someone will actually take him to court over this, as he's confident that a court would rule in his favor, finally setting an important precedent. Here's hoping that's true. Unfortunately, we've seen too many bad legal rulings on similar issues to feel that comfortable with simply letting a court set the precedent.

Filed Under: california, carl malamud, copyright, laws

California The Latest To Try To Outlaw Cyberbullying: Send A Mean Txt, Get Kicked Out Of School

from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept

You want to know how to basically clog up the administration of various high schools across the state of California? Pass a law that would kick kids out of school for sending a "cyberbullying" text message. Yet, that's exactly the type of bill that's been introduced in the state, as it rushes into following others in trying to make it illegal to be a jerk online. Yes, cyberbullying is an issue for the targets of such bullying. But the answer is not to create laws that try to legislate manners, nor to suggest that it's okay to kick kids out of school for sending a bullying message. All that's going to do is have overly sensitive kids complaining any time anyone sends them a mean message.

Filed Under: california, cyberbullying, expelled

Good News For Innovation: California Confirms That Noncompetes Are Unenforceable

from the phew dept

Last year, I outlined a bunch of research from the past few years that show how damaging noncompete agreements are to innovation. In fact, some of the research suggests that the single biggest factor in explaining why Silicon Valley became such a hub for tech innovation is the fact that noncompetes are unenforceable here. Studies comparing Silicon Valley to Boston and Michigan are quite convincing on the importance of allowing greater job mobility in order to promote more innovation. In fact, there's a vocal group in Massachusetts that has put a lot of effort into (finally) getting that state to ban noncompetes.

Of course, it appeared that some were pushing in the opposite direction in California (at least via lawsuit). But the good news is that California's Supreme Court has now reiterated that noncompetes are unenforceable here. This is a huge victory for innovation in the Valley.

Filed Under: california, noncompetes

Court Makes Sprint Pay $73 Million Early Termination Fee

from the see-how-that-feels? dept

You know that awful feeling you get when your mobile operator tells you there's a huge "early termination fee" for canceling your contract early? Yeah, that's probably about how Sprint executives feel now that Sprint may need to pay $73 million for its ETFs. A closer look at the details shows that it really would just be refunding $18.25 million and then reversing charges on another $54.75 million in ETFs that hadn't been paid. People absolutely hate ETFs, and even Sprint acknowledged this last year when it noted that its eventual WiMAX network won't have ETFs.

However, there is a reason why such ETFs exist: it's basically to recoup the subsidy that mobile operators pay to give you your super cheap mobile phones. And, those ETFs were in the contracts offered to customers, so it's difficult to see why such things are really a problem. The actual ruling sheds some light on this, as it notes that in 80% of the ETFs, it was actually Sprint terminating the contract and then still charging the ETF -- which, as the ruling points out, is basically Sprint trying to get "liquidated damages." Then, the problem is that it does so in violation of a specific California law that requires a more accurate calculation of liquidated damages, beyond "the ETF is $200 no matter what." So, this isn't the end of ETFs by any means, but might mean that they need to be a bit more fair going forward.

Filed Under: california, early termination fee, etf, liquidated damages, subsidies
Companies: sprint