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

L.A. and S.F. district attorneys filed a 62-page amended complaint last week in a civil lawsuit that claims Uber is a “continuing threat to consumers and the public.” The DAs detailed the criminal histories of 25 drivers, including a convicted murderer and other felons. The lawsuit claims the company misleads the public by calling its background checks rigorous.   read more

The department said it was following a state law passed in 2013 that says school districts and the department, “shall not use a comparison resulting from the scores and results” of the new tests “and the assessment scores and results from assessments that measured previously adopted content standards.” That is a directive for agencies not to use old data in their official actions. The law does not comment on parents and nongovernmental organizations having access to the information.   read more

The Oakland Police Department said it ran out of room on its computer’s puny 80GB hard drive and had to scale back the length of time it will retain records from forever to six months. The department told Ars Technica that the elaborate procurement process prevented them from just buying an extra terabyte of memory. They cost around $50. “We don't just buy stuff from Amazon as you suggested,” Sergeant Dave Burke told the publication.   read more

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that the financially-strapped U.S. Marshals Office would save money on staffing and logistics by shackling everyone. But the three-judge panel ruled that wasn’t an excuse for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to deny people their Constitutional rights. It also looked bad.   read more

Bruce Saito was part of the CCC team in 1976 that created the model for youth development and environmental enhancement programs at a time when there were few other 501 (c)(3) non-profits in existence. He was recruited by the L.A. Conservation Corps after former U.S Secretary of Commerce Mickey Kantor founded it in 1986. Saito was executive director emeritus and senior advisor at the L.A. Conservation Corps since 2014.   read more

Seventy-five percent of California’s marketplace plans have narrow networks. The nationwide average is 41%. Twelve states managed to avoid any narrow networks. There is no way for a consumer to find out the size of a particular network when shopping for a plan. “It is difficult for a consumer to assess network size, even as a broad concept,” the report says. “As a result, the trade-off between network size and premiums is not at all transparent.”   read more

The auditor laid blame at the feet of the California Department of Technology. Not only is the department not addressing these deficiencies, “until our audit, it was not aware that many reporting entities had not complied with its requirements.” Forty-one of the entities surveyed by the auditor had told the technology department they were 100% compliant with security standards. Only four were.   read more

The CPUC said it was unable to turn over any documents—that’s zero documents—because the agency is too busy fulfilling other requests for documents being made under the California Public Records Act and federal subpoenas. The story didn’t change in Diaz’s August 7 update. “No extension has been requested and no indication has been given as to when the records will be produced,” he wrote.   read more

Upon review, perhaps it wasn’t necessary for 33 police to shoot at Stockton bank robbers 600 times at four locations during a chaotic, hour-long high-speed chase in July 2014, killing one hostage with a barrage of fire.   read more

California’s cotton crop, fourth largest in the nation, is expected to decline 24% this year from last. California farmers grew cotton on 1.65 million acres in 1979 and 667,000 acres in 2005, but only expect to harvest 160,000 acres this year. It is the lowest acreage farmed for cotton since the Depression.   read more

Researchers for “Struggling to Get By: The Real Cost Measure in California 2015” calculate that 3.2 million California households (31%) lack sufficient income to cover the basic costs of living. That’s even higher than the 23.4% Supplemental Poverty Measure for California used by the U.S. Census Bureau to measure additional cost-of-living factors.   read more

The New York Times topped their story last week about widespread use of the facial recognition system Tactical Identification System (TACIDS) nationally with tales from California’s second-largest city. The 10-month pilot program from back in 2013, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, turned into a permanent gig. But the San Diego Police Department didn’t get around to issuing “a written policy on the technology’s use until June 19 and recently began officer training.”   read more

Additional testing could cost $150 million, sources told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, which is significant since the bankrupt Exide agreed in March to keep the shuttered plant closed and pay $38.6 million to clean up the site. Exide also paid $9 million for the residential cleanup. “We are looking to put a funding stream in place to get started. Then we will recover the cost and pay ourselves back as we go,” DTSC Director Barbara Lee said.   read more

Last week, the board voted 5-1 to adopt the state’s first environmental regulations for growing marijuana. The region is said to be decimated by large-scale growing operations on public and private land that waste limited water resources, pollute indiscriminately with pesticides and fertilizer, and otherwise abuse the environment.   read more

Now, Californians can direct their anxiety and anger over water shortages against their neighbors with the push of a button, while pondering, in passing, the policies and protagonists that are perhaps more relevant. Someone is to blame for the 25% water cutback we must endure; why not take it out on the douchebag across the street whose sprinklers are dampening the sidewalk on the wrong day of the week.   read more

The database shows 15,822 total thefts from vehicles to date as of July 31, compared to 11,084 last year. The vast majority qualify as grand theft, 12,742 this year, while 3,080 are petty. Thirteen percent (2,099) of those submitting reports to the police indicated their cars were unlocked.Not everyone files a police report, so it’s hard to interpret the statistics.   read more