Late Friday, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit EFF filed with the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) that challenges the unconstitutional provisions in Proposition 35, a ballot measure passed by California voters in November that restricts the legal and constitutionally protected speech of all registered sex offenders in California.
EFF and the ACLU-NC filed the lawsuit the morning after Election Day, noting that although Prop 35 is ostensibly about increasing punishment for human traffickers, it’s beset with problems. The biggest was its requirement that registrants turn over a list of all their Internet identifiers and service providers to law enforcement. The court granted a temporary restraining order hours after the lawsuit was filed. And today, the court granted the preliminary injunction, finding we were likely to succeed in showing that Prop. 35 violated the First Amendment. Full Article
Court Order: Prop 35 – Preliminary Injunction
Related Articles:
- Why We Fight to Keep Registered Sex Offenders Online – wired.com (Hanni Fakhoury is a Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).)
- ACLU and EFF Challenge Free Speech Restrictions in California’s Proposition 35
- Temporary Restraining Order granted by the court to stop enforcement of Proposition 35
This is great news! Thank you to all – ACLU, EFF, CA RSOL etc!
Wow what awesome news. I thank God this turned out this way. I live in Lancaster where they are constantly trying to make life a living hell for 290’s. This is one step closer to putting The City of Lancaster in it’s place. By the way if you ever hear of available housing for a 290 in Lancaster please let me know soon as I am about to be homeless again.
This is some very welcome news. Thanks for all you do, Janice, and everyone else involved!
The Constitution Works…the Constitution Works …!!!…Thank God …
Outstanding work by the ACLU…EFF…& Janice BELLUCCI……thank you…!…
Defending and protecting the Constitution for everyone …EVERYONE …
OUTSTANDING …!!!!
Great news!
Hope this momentum keeps rolling in 2013 and we finally see some sanity so good people can get on with their lives as others who have made mistakes are allowed to do.
How refreshing to wake up to some good news! Thanks to all involved, and thank God the ACLU of Northern Ca. finally came to our rescue. It restores my faith.
Kind of ironic how Chris Kelly profited financially (immensely I would speculate) as an Executive of Facebook, which was instrumental in providing the major platform for the offending behavior in the first place. Plus heavy marketing to the potential ‘victim’ pool and an inability or unwillingness to enforce their own TOS (age minimum).
Now, as an Ex-Executive, is he looking to profit again? Politically? Financially some more?
The number of individuals on the list always jumps around. When trying to defend these laws the numbers are minimized. When trying to scare the public the numbers are maximized. What is the CA RSO number? And how are differing numbers justified? High Risk vs. Low Risk vs. Other Risk? I fall into California’s “Other” risk group, which is by default definition lower risk than low risk, and does not qualify as an RSO under Fedral or most other states. Does any one have stats on the 100k on CA RSO list?
Just saw this on the front page of the Megan’s Law web site:
ATTENTION: FEDERAL COURT ENJOINS COLLECTION OF E-MAIL AND SOCIAL NETWORKING INFORMATION ON REGISTRATION FORMS.
On January 11, 2013, a federal court enjoined the Attorney General and law enforcement agencies from collecting information pertaining to e-mail addresses, internet service providers, and social networking/screen names on sex offender registration forms. These fields will not appear on the 2013 DOJ registration forms (DOJ forms 8047, 8102) which are about to be released. This injunction is in effect until the lawsuit challenging these provisions of Proposition 35, the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation (CASE) Act, is decided or until further notice. (John Doe v. Kamala Harris, Northern District of California No. C12-5713 TEH). Registering law enforcement agencies should black out these fields on the 2012 forms, and should not collect this information until further notice
Pursuit of happiness:
An inalienable right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, in addition to life and liberty; the right to pursue any legal activity as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others.
Well, that one has been taken away, liberty is pretty much gone, the attempt at removing freedom of speech is temporarily thwarted. Seems most of SO’s just “exist”, and that’s barely existing. Living day by day, wondering when a job will come through, hoping that our children and families are safe, questioning why RSO’s aren’t provided the same protection as others. Just curious though, after time served, probation or parole finished and other “penalties” fulfilled, why are our legal activities limited? Sad we can’t even protect our families or selves; cannot pursue even a little happiness by playing with our children in the park or cannot improve our lives because higher education/library access is limited. Yep, just wondering…
Heart of a Lion
We are very fortunate to have Janice fighting for Us. I speak with first hand knowledge of her abilities to defend my rights. I feel hope where there was once fear. With the leadership of Janice the tide is beginning to flow in our favor. Spread the word. God Bless Janice!
Found this article -which is poorly written in that it does not contain pertinent dates- and I’m wondering if someone knows something definitive about this “ruling”.
http://www.minorityreporter.net/fullstory/fullstory.php?id=345
RE: California appealing to the 9th Circuit with regard to Proposition 35’s Internet ID provision.
Questions>
1. Will the appeal be heard by a 3-judge panel or en banc (in banc)?
2. What is the state restricted to in arguing the case, as opposed to their original arguments in the lower circuit?
3. What is our side restricted to in defending the appeal?
Part of my argument comes from the way Proposition was “marketed,” which was seen primarily as an anti-(child) trafficking bill, with a MINOR emphasis on the email address inclusion. In fact, I believe this was deliberate, in that Chris Kelly was SOLELY interested in the email address inclusion and USED trafficking as the selling point. In short, had Chris Kelly tried to create a proposition restricted to email addresses, he would not have gotten the required signatures and the proposition would not have happened.
While this summation cannot be presented in court, couldn’t the fact that the trafficking clauses of Proposition 35 ALREADY was in place statute-wise, with appropriate penalties? If that argument is allowed, then that would throw cold water onto the state’s claim that the people “wanted” email address inclusion.
4. If a three-judge panel rules AGAINST the state, what are the chances that they appeal to the full panel?
5. Conversely, if a three-judge panel rules FOR the state, what are the chances that WE could appeal to the full panel?
Lots of questions, hopefully some answers could be instructive. Thanks!
I’m not certain if the answers to your questions are in the Court’s web-site –
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/home
but it may be likely that they might be able to point you towards a resource that
is helpful.
Hi Janice / Eric,
I really appreciate the effort, hard work & production you both put into RSOL.
Personally I am the lowest risk offender (not listed on Megans web site)& have been
doing the lifetime reg. req. since 1986. Can either of you, or anyone else point me in the right direction as to the source with respect to Eric’s post 2/13/13 of Calif. appealing to the the 9th circuit per prop 35? I’m looking for dates, 3-panel judge vs. en-banc, etc.
Thanks to all for your posts, it’s good to know that there are fellow sisters & brothers that are concerned about all of this, as ‘am I, and share their learnings, knowledge & expertise.
S.H.
The plaintiffs successfully moved for a temporary restraining order, which remained in effect until the district court ruled on the plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction.