ICE agents have reportedly claimed to be police officers to gain consent to enter a person’s home – a tactic that is viewed as unethical, but within the powers granted to the officers. Civil rights groups supported Kalra’s bill, looking to stymie the Trump administration’s promise to use any and all available tools to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. Many groups fear Trump will expand deportations to include all undocumented immigrants, their families and relatives.   read more

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, differs from other legal action taken over the agency’s secret collection of citizens’ communication records. Rather than focus on the loss of constitutionally guaranteed privacy, the lawsuit argues that the spying violates the First Amendment “right to communicate anonymously, the right to associate privately, and the right to engage in political advocacy free from government interference.”   read more

MOOCs have been hailed as a modern substitute for an outdated form of education—a better, more efficient way to teach. The philosophy department at San Jose State thinks that description is disingenuous. “Let’s not fool ourselves; administrators at the CSU are beginning a process of replacing faculty with cheap online education. In our case, we had better be sure that this is what we want to do because once the CSU or any university system is restructured in this way it will never recover.”   read more

The bill is being sold by its supporters as a money-saving way of streamlining vehicle registration by eliminating the need for new plates, stickers and cards. Privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have been bird-dogging it. Their fear is that the presence of the plates might undo a Supreme Court decision requiring a search warrant before attachment of a tracking device to a vehicle, since the device would already legally be there.   read more

The British-owned financial institution, fresh from a $450 million fine for its role in rigging the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR), said it and its traders did nothing wrong by placing complicated bets, in a derivative swaps market, against its own energy market investments. Four traders for the bank were also fined a total of $18 million for their role in what is called a “loss-leader” scheme.   read more

To win a lawsuit it would probably have to show that its reputation, and business, was materially injured by the broadcast. It could be argued there are other factors contributing to Asiana’s diminished brand. Three people were killed and more than 100 were injured when its Boeing 777 smashed into a sea wall while landing at the airport on July 6.   read more

He said he received the money in Mexico as part of a business transaction for his bean export company and knew he had to declare it at the border. So, why didn’t he? Rakigjija’s reason was “he got distracted with the inspection of the vehicle and discovery of Marijuana in his sons vehicle,” according to the officer’s statement.   read more

One of the PUC’s most vocal critics, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), said the new proposal mirrors its own recommendations on consumer benefits. “The differences between the two proposals are night and day,” TURN's legal director Thomas Long told the Oakland Tribune. “The first proposal was smoke and mirrors. This is a real proposal that holds PG&E accountable for serious and unprecedented violations of the law that led to the explosion.”   read more

The lawsuit differs from other unsuccessful attempts in seven other states to sue lead paint manufacturers by arguing the companies violated state public nuisance laws, rather than health laws. Government lawyers won’t have to show that specific individuals were harmed in a direct way, only that the industry assisted in the creation of a public nuisance.   read more

Although Judge McElroy rejected the harsher punishment, the Chauncey Bailey Project, a group of investigative journalists, quoted from the judge’s 16-page report that Brown “willfully ignored her duties as an attorney, as well as the health and safety of witnesses who planned to testify.”   read more

Attorney Ian Wallach told the Associated Press that the state regularly releases severely infected prisoners with a 30-day supply of medication that costs $2,000 a month to obtain. “Without the medicine, they will die,” Wallach said. “With the medicine, their quality of life is still unbearable.”   read more

But one man’s gay, satanic bacchanal is another’s “Greatest Men’s Party on Earth,” a “giant frat party with trees” where guys get drunk, pee in the woods and listen to a lot of speeches. For others, it’s more simply a “right-wing, laisse-faire and quintessentially western” crowd of power brokers networking as they would at the Republican National Convention or the world economic summit in Davos, Switzerland.   read more

Filner, 70, has a reputation as a political brawler who does not back down, but he was issuing confessions (minus the specifics) and apologies hours after three former political allies called for his resignation amid accusations of sexual harassment. His tenure as mayor—the first elected as a Democrat in the historically Republican city since 1986—has been marked by sharp personal and political exchanges.   read more

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ordered an independent review last week of mental health facilities run by the Department of State Hospitals that provide services to prisons. He cited an “urgency of the issues at hand,” including doctor shortages, treatment delays, premature release of patients from inpatient care and a “denial of basic necessities, including clean underwear.”   read more

The dispute pitted advocates of the ban, who argued the pits—often used for bonfires—were a pollution hazard, against those who claimed wealthy people living at the shore were trying to get rid of fire ring attendees, who tended to be of a lower socio-economic status. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) voted 7-6 to allow only those pits that are 700 feet from the nearest residence or are at least 100 feet apart.   read more

Janet Napolitano’s career has been marked by high-profile appearances in situations of an especially challenging nature, and the Homeland Security chief’s decision last week to leave government to become president at the University of California (UC) probably won’t break the pattern. Napolitano is coming to a state with a large number of undocumented residents after presiding over the federal government’s aggressive deportation of illegal immigrants.   read more

They found chicken, pork, bacon and vegetables among the products improperly stashed. According to NBC, Sysco admitted to inspectors that the company has conducted business this way for years, but promised to break its leases with the storage companies. And in an email to NBC, it promised to start doing what it already knew it should be doing.   read more