Results tagged “federalgovernment”

Former SF pot club owner Kenneth Hayes (pictured here in 1999), whose Sixth Street dispensary, the Harm Reduction Center, was raided by federal agents in 2002, was sentenced to six months of home confinement today by a federal judge. Hayes' co-defendent, Oakland marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal got probation, despite a federal law stating that he should get at least five years in prison for supplying Hayes with his pot. Both men existed in murky legal territory, having worked with local authorities to set up their businesses and believing they were acting within the law -- just not the federal one.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker will hold a hearing on September 1 regarding the federal government's illegal wiretapping of former charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon, in 2004. The charity has presented public documents that show that agents eavesdropped on phone calls without a warrant, which violated the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

Terrific news, everyone! CNN has obtained a copy of a report being delivered to Congress this morning detailing how undercover agents managed to sneak bomb-making components into ten "Level IV" federal office buildings in four different, unnamed U.S. cities (including, quite possibly, our own). The agents then went ahead and assembled the bombs in restrooms and trotted about the buildings' offices with the improvised devices in their briefcases, unbeknownst to all concerned.

Some of the largest employers in the Bay Area are being investigated by the Department of Justice to determine if they have been in cahoots not to recruit or hire away each others' key employees. The story first broke on The Deal, and now appears on The Washington Post. Sources for the Post report that the probe is industry-wide, and asserts that "by agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly."

A new piece today in the Washington Post suggests that Obama administration officials and members of Congress alike are considering the possibility of a VAT, or value-added tax, which would impose a levy on all goods and services in order to cover the nation's gi-fucking-normous budget deficit. Along with raising taxes on the highest earners, the idea of a VAT seems to be gaining traction as something that has worked for 130 other countries worldwide.

Every year, California fills out a bunch of forms, dots a lot of i's, and writes up some reports to send off to the EPA for permission to be granted a waiver from EPA rules to create their own carbon dioxide emission limits. This all started in the 70s when California pollution wasn't so groovy and was made more of a priority recently when the state decided to do something about Global Warming as the Federal Government was too busy thinking Global Warming was nothing but the blabberings of a bunch of tree-hugging hippies and wanted that cute little polar bear to die. Everytime the state had sent out the request, the state had been granted a waiver. But not this year-- our request just got ixnayed.

In a big press conference yesterday, city officials announced plans to have police officers start patrolling four projects in the Western Addition. Up until now, police weren't able to patrol those places due to issues concerning who had jurisdiction over them-- San Francisco or the Federal Government. The Federal Government had supported community policing in those areas, but the money dried up years ago. After looking through what Ross Mirkarimi called a "Khafka-esque" relationship between HUD and the SFPD, a solution was reached.

One good thing about being the area known as having the most-liberal, terrorist loving court system is that we get all the fun lawsuits happening here. Which would describe a lawsuit filed a couple of days ago against the Federal Government at the US District in San Francisco for slacking on a global warming report.

That eavesdropping case we've been following took another step to eventually seeing the light of as an appeals court has decided to review the decision by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker that the lawsuit should move forward despite the whining of the Federal Government. The eavesdropping case, for those who don't remember, was brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the Government and AT&T for reading things they shouldn't be reading. Of what, we don't know but its super serious and of utmost importance to the War on Terror. And porn. We're sure somewhere they're checking out porn.

It looks like the Federal Government is finally going to investigate certain fishy aspects of voting machines. And no, we're not talking Diebold. We're talking about Oakland's very own Sequoia Voting Machines. Why? Because one of their investors is a group of wealthy Venezuelan’s thought to have ties to Venezuelan crazy guy Hugo Chavez. Cause remember folks, throwing U.S. elections is for Americans and Americans only. Oh, and Republicans too.

Patricia Dunn, ex Chairwoman of H.P. is now officially having the worst week ever. Yesterday, it was her starting chemo for ovarian cancer and now today, she just got indicted by the California Attorney General. Dunn was charged with four felonies:

"using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access to computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes."

-A 51 year old Nuclear Power Plant engineer from Sacramento is in custody for sending a letter containing a powdery substance to a Country Club President Bush is scheduled to appear at today. Did Homer Simpson just threaten the President?

Finally, the Board of Supervisors are getting behind something we can roundly support-- decriminalizing marijuana! Not that we've ever smoked dope before, of course.

Okay, here's an update on that lawsuit against AT&T and the Federal Government for illegally snooping on people's phone calls and e-mails. Basically, there are about seventeen similar lawsuits out there in the midst of the legal world and because they're all sort of similar-- whiny Al Queda supporters suing the telecoms and government for doing something unconstitutional, they've been mashed together into one big lawsuit sandwich. That sandwich will be heard in San Francisco's very own Federal Court by one U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. The reasoning is because out of all the various suits out there, the AT&T one is the most advanced. Bully to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation and how awesome would it be if they started their own University just so people could say they go to EFF U?) and the ACLU for being on the ball.

We were driving to work the other day and heard an oh-so-familiar voice on Live 105's Morning Show. Sure enough, it was Gavin, making his way to yet another morning radio show. That dude sure does get around. After talking about all the boring stuff like issues and homelessness and his new Project Connect, the conversation finally got around to the juicy stuff and he was asked about life as a single guy. Apparently, from what he said, it's hard to out there to be a Mayor in the dating world. He even jokingly said he should put up a profile on Match.com. Of course, it sounds like he might have been fronting, but you know how it is when Gavin gets all earnest and puppy-dog'ish-- how can you not take what he's saying at face value?

Am I the only one who found 2005 to be one of the fastest years on record? I can't even believe it's over - I remember it just starting. I didn't even get everything on my list done! Here's a more leisurely 2006!

By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court voted today to overturn a decision by a San Francisco federal appeals court that allowed the use of medicinal marijuana. The court ruled that in cases such as these, federal laws prevail over state laws and so the Feds can prosecute Californians for smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes. There goes having to worry about too many pot clubs in the city. Voting against the ruling were Chief Justice William Rehnquist (probably keeping his options open now that he's got cancer), Sandra Day O'Connor, and Clarence Thomas. Yep, Clarence Thomas. We always got the feeling he was a bit of a party boy.

"A donation like this takes some sacrifice. ... But I believe that San Francisco values humanitarianism, and that the San Francisco value of international solidarity and San Francisco heart trumps on this item.”