A crucial piece of legislation C AB 1264 C aimed at documenting the apparently widespread practice of racially motivated vehicle stops by California police officers is currently scheduled to be heard by the state Senate Appropriations Committee on August 3.

The bill, formally titled the "California Traffic Stops Statistics Act," but more commonly known as the "DWB" C Driving While Black or Brown C bill, was introduced in June by the Chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus Democratic Assemblyman Kevin Murray of Los Angeles. The measure would provide the first comprehensive data on routine traffic stops in California, showing the extent to which discriminatory enforcement patterns may exist. The bill would require law enforcement to collect and report statistical information on motorists pulled over for a three-year period.

The bill has garnered strong support from minority law enforcement organizations such as the National Black Police Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the National Latino Peace Officers' Association and the California organization Minorities in Law Enforcement.

"Passage of the bill is crucial in addressing the long-standing problem of racial discrimination in traffic stops," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "DWB stops continue to erode public confidence in law enforcement."

"The phenomenon of `Driving While Black' is a disturbing trend affecting African Americans, Latinos and other minorities across the nation," Assemblyman Murray said. "The fact that we do not know how many drivers are being pulled over or how many law enforcement officers are engaging in racial profiling is truly disturbing."

Murray's bill would require that the data be reported to Sacramento and summarized as part of an existing statistical report released annually by the California Department of Justice. Murray himself was celebrating winning a primary election for Democratic nomination to the state Senate on June 2 when his Corvette was inexplicably pulled over by a Beverly Hills police officer.

Other high profile African American public figures pulled over in questionable traffic stops in California, include actors Wesley Snipes and LeVar Burton; athletes Marcus Allen, Al Joyner, Jamaal Wilkes and Shawn Lee; and renowned former prosecutor Christopher Darden.

AB 1264 mirrors a bill introduced last year in Congress. The federal bill, HR 118 (the federal Traffic Stops Statistics Act), has passed the House but is currently stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Today, the City Council voted to support Assembly Bill 1793, a bill that would require state-funded libraries that provide Internet access to adopt a policy regarding access by minors by January 1, 2000.
The ACLU recognizes the importance of protecting children from harmful material but reminds libraries that they must be careful to craft policy in accordance with First Amendment principles.
The ACLU is pleased that the City Council deferred action on three other bills that would have severely restricted Internet access by children in schools and public libraries. These bills (AB 2350, H.R. 3177 and S. 1619) would require an Internet filtering system on computers in schools and libraries. These proposed bills would censor a wide-range of socially valuable, constitutionally protected speech.
ACLU Staff Attorney Peter Eliasberg commented, "Proponents of filtering software rely on a completely false premise - that filtering software only blocks obscene sites or sites that are harmful to minors. This premise is wrong. A typical filtering software product that claims to censor obscene material actually blocked the web site for the San Francisco Examiner, the Yale Biology Department, the American Society of University Women, and the Quakers, among others."
There is a second false premise here: filtering software protects minors by keeping certain information away from them. In fact, filtering software blocks web sites that target atrisk youth, that provide safe sex information, and sites aimed at lesbian and gay teenagers.
We urge City Council members to oppose the remaining three Internet filtering bills as overly broad and dangerous restrictions on information critical to teens, and remind members that filters clearly are unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment.

The ACLU of Southern California requests that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors call for an immediate and permanent ban on the use of stun belts by county judges or other court personnel as a means of punishing or otherwise restraining non-violent defendants.

Last Thursday, the ACLU sent letters to the Presiding Judges of both the Municipal and Superior Courts of Los Angeles County calling on the courts to ensure that judges or other court personnel will terminate use of these devices to punish or subdue non-threatening defendants.

These letters followed an incident concerning the use of a stun belt to silence a defendant. The ACLU is not here to discuss the specifics of a particular incident or judge's actions. We have joined a national and international coalition of human rights activists who demand that the use of stun belts as punishment be ended, once and for all.

The ACLU of Southern California calls on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to make clear that it strongly supports a ban on this inhumane practice and that the use of electro-shock belts as punishment be forever banned in the Los Angeles County courts.

These belts were originally designed to control physically violent defendants for whom no other means of restraint by law enforcement agents was possible. Their use must be restricted solely to those rare instances when a defendant becomes violent and threatens the physical safety of court personnel and the public, and law enforcement has no other means to restrain the person.

There are other obvious and tested solutions to behavior that is disruptive but not physically threatening. Defendants or others who interrupt court proceedings may be removed from the courtroom and even required to view the proceedings by video.

Under the VIII Amendment to our nation's constitution we are forbidden to inflict `cruel and unusual punishment. . .' Use of the electro-shock belt as punishment for disruptive behavior is not only cruel and unusual but macabre, and coverts our courtrooms into modern day torture chambers. Meting out punishment via the shock belt also constitutes an obvious and egregious violation of a defendant's right to due process.

The ACLU seeks an assurance from the Superior and Municipal Courts that, with the sole exception of controlling a physically violent defendant who poses an imminent and extreme threat to public safety, use of the electro-shock belt will be banned from the courtrooms. We ask the Board of Supervisors to join us in seeking such an assurance from the court. Please be advised that without such representation, the ACLU will have no recourse but to litigate the practice immediately.