San Francisco may start gun fight over pro-firearm ads
SAN FRANCISCO--A San Francisco transit agency spokesman says the city is investigating whether pro-gun ads, which an advocacy group recently purchased, should have been posted in transit stations this week.
The city's policy on such ads is strict but clear: It says that "no advertisement" shall "promote the use of firearms."
caption: San Francisco says it's "reviewing" what to do about pro-gun ad, which violates city's anti-gun policy
/ Second Amendment Foundation"We're reviewing the matter as we speak," Paul Rose, a spokesman for the San Francisco Metro Transit Authority, told CBSNews.com. "I don't have a timeline. At this point they'll remain up."
San Francisco, of course, takes a famously dim view of gun rights. A ballot initiative to ban handguns easily passed a few years ago, before being overturned by the courts, and some residents in one neighborhood are trying to drive the one remaining gun shop out of town.
Which is why the SFMTA's policy should come as no surprise. It was used as recently as last month to force a poster for the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg film "The Other Guys" to be redrawn. No longer do the two stars brandish handguns; instead, Ferrell is holding pepper spray.
"Well, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency does have an advertising policy that states ads should not appear to promote the use of firearms or advocate any violent action," Rose told the SF Weekly newspaper at the time.
The new ads -- which the Second Amendment Foundation purchased and which appeared this week -- appear to violate SFMTA's policy. The ads show (PDF) an Asian-American woman peeking through a curtain armed with a pump shotgun. The accompanying text: "A violent criminal is breaking through your front door. Can you afford to be unarmed?"
Rose said in a telephone interview that SFMTA didn't know about the ads in advance (the agency outsources advertising to Clear Channel Outdoor). "The vendor's responsible for reviewing the ads' compliance with our advertising policy," he said.
A Democratic source close to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors said Thursday that: "I'd hope that they'd look into that and not let these things slip through the cracks."
The potential legal problem for the city is not the Second Amendment, but the First Amendment. It generally prohibits government agencies, including city governments, from approving or rejecting otherwise legal advertisements based on their political message.
(In a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Second Amendment protects Americans' rights to possess handguns, even if local governments such as Chicago would prefer otherwise.)
Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb says that if San Francisco takes down the advertisements, which also promote his group's gun rights policy conference in a nearby suburb, he'll see them in court: "All I can do is pray that all the publicity will make them want to decide to take down the ads -- so we can sue!
Declan McCullagh is a correspondent for CBS Interactive's CNET News and a contributor to CBSNews.com. You can e-mail him or follow him on Twitter as declanm. Declan previously was a reporter for Time and the Washington bureau chief for Wired.
California Democrat proposes mandatory gun registration
A California Democrat is proposing a new law requiring residents to register their shotguns and rifles or go to jail, CBSNews.com has learned.
Assemblyman Mike Feuer, whose district includes Beverly Hill and West Hollywood, this week introduced legislation ordering law enforcement to "permanently keep" records of anyone who buys a gun from a dealer or an individual. California already stores information about handgun purchases.
Feuer is no friend of firearms owners: his previous legislative effort, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law, required all new handguns to include "microstamping" technology that can imprint serial numbers on spent ammunition casings. As a Los Angeles city councilman, Feuer proposed limiting city residents to one gun a month.
Feuer spokeswoman Arianna Smith declined to answer questions about the bill on Tuesday afternoon, saying the staff member involved was in a meeting and not immediately available.
The proposal comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a landmark civil rights case, McDonald v. Chicago, which will decide whether Second Amendment rights in the federal constitution trump state anti-gun laws. But California is proposing mandatory registration -- and not a flat ban, as Washington, D.C. once tried and the justices rejected -- and even legal scholars specializing in this area disagree about whether registration is constitutional.
"Even though the constitutionality of such a measure is a close call, it is a horrible public policy choice," says Gene Hoffman, chairman of the CalGuns Foundation. "Just as Canada is about to do away with their long gun registry after squandering $1 billion, California wishes to attack law abiding gun owners for firearms not used in crime."
A CBC News article last month reported that the Canadian parliament is backing away from the nation's gun registry, which was enacted in 1989 and has now come under fire by critics who call it a billion-dollar boondoggle.
Feuer's bill isn't exactly a surprise: He told the Brady Campaign, an anti-gun advocacy group, earlier this year that his forthcoming proposal would give law enforcement another tool to track down people in possession of illegal firearms. "This legislation will close a glaring loophole and ensure that all firearm records, not just handgun records, are maintained for law enforcement purposes," Ellen Boneparth, spokesperson for the California Brady Campaign Chapters, said in a statement at the time.
Feuer appears to have adopted an unusual approach to introducing his mandatory registration bill. He took an existing piece of criminal legislation, AB 1810, that dealt with graffiti and vandalism, and replaced it with a completely new version with the same bill number.
A hearing is scheduled for April 13 in Sacramento before the California State Assembly's Committee on Public Safety.
At the moment, a minority of states including New York, Maryland, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts require mandatory registration for handguns. Others, like Pennsylvania, require sales of handguns to go through a dealer, who keeps records of the transaction.
No federal firearm registry exists, though some anti-gun types have pushed for one in the past. An unsuccessful 1995 bill, H.R. 169, would have imposed California-style registration of handguns nationwide through a "federal handgun registration system." Violations would have been punished by up to 12 years in prison. The author of the bill, Rep. Cardiss Collins, D-Illinois, told her colleagues at the time that "I still believe the best way to control handguns is to ban them outright."
Declan McCullagh is a correspondent for CBS Interactive's CNET News and a contributor to CBSNews.com. You can e-mail him or follow him on Twitter as declanm. Declan previously was a reporter for Time and the Washington bureau chief for Wired.
Blogs, YouTube Prompt Campaign Finance Ruling
(CBS/AP)
A 5-4 majority concluded that technological changes have chipped away at the justification for a law that allows individuals to create a blog with opinions about a political candidate--but threatens the ACLU, the National Rifle Association, a labor union, or a corporation with felony charges if they do the same.
The now-invalidated law "would seem to ban a blog post expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate if that blog were created with corporate funds," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "The First Amendment does not permit Congress to make these categorical distinctions based on the corporate identity of the speaker and the content of the political speech."
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Bill Clinton: Billions To Haiti Are "Modest." Really?
Only in Washington, D.C. political circles, it seems, can billions of dollars be dismissed as a "modest amount."
But that's how former president Bill Clinton characterized the U.S. government's foreign aid to Haiti, saying on CBS's Early Show on Friday that relatively little money has been handed to Haiti over the years. (It's about 2:30 into the nearby video.)
The truth is that, according to a government report, U.S. taxpayers handed "about 1.1 billion in assistance" to Haiti during the 1990s. In the following decade, the sum jumped to around $1.6 billion; it would have been higher if aid had not been cut off from 1999 through mid-2004 after the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
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But that's how former president Bill Clinton characterized the U.S. government's foreign aid to Haiti, saying on CBS's Early Show on Friday that relatively little money has been handed to Haiti over the years. (It's about 2:30 into the nearby video.)
The truth is that, according to a government report, U.S. taxpayers handed "about 1.1 billion in assistance" to Haiti during the 1990s. In the following decade, the sum jumped to around $1.6 billion; it would have been higher if aid had not been cut off from 1999 through mid-2004 after the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
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War Blogger May Sue Over Handcuffing At Seattle Airport
(CBS)
Yon posted on Facebook on Tuesday that he was handcuffed and "arrested at the Seattle airport" for refusing questions, including ones related to his annual income, that "had nothing to do with national security."
In the last few days, conservatives have seized on Yon's encounter -- apparently with Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agents -- as an example of the Obama administration aiming its airline security efforts in the wrong direction. To Michelle Malkin, it's the "security idiocy of the day." On HotAir.com, Ed Morrissey says: "Instead of hassling American citizens about their income or watching the ice melt, how about paying attention to actual security and intelligence issues? Please?" And there's been at least one on-air mention on Fox News.
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Senate Health Bill Faces Constitutional Criticism
(AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
That answer isn't quite as obvious. In fact, there are reasonable arguments, such as one that Republican senator Orrin Hatch made in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, that such a law would violate the U.S. Constitution.
Hatch's argument, written in an opinion article co-authored with conservative scholars Ken Blackwell and Kenneth Klukowski, is this:
It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned…
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U.S. was Warned of Predator Drone Hacking
(CBS)
Hackers working with Iraqi militants were able to determine which areas of the country were under surveillance by the U.S. military, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, adding that video feeds from drones in Afghanistan also appear to have been compromised.
This apparent security breach, which had been known in military and intelligence circles to be possible, arose because the Predator unmanned aerial vehicles do not use encryption in the final link to their operators on the ground. (By contrast, every time you log on to a bank or credit card Web site, or make a phone call on most modern cellular networks, your communications are protected by encryption technology.)
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Courts Split Over Cops Searching Cell Phones
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Most people have probably figured out that handheld gadgets and laptops know us better than our spouses do. They know whom we talk to, which Web sites we visit, whose e-mail we ignore, and with a little extra smarts, they could probably offer an educated guess about what we'd prefer for dinner tonight.
To snatch these useful little devices from our homes, police need warrants. But if we happen to be arrested with gadgets in our pocket or purse, police and prosecutors say they have the right to peruse what could be gigabytes of data for potentially incriminating files or photographs.
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Dick Armey Q&A: Republicans Must Learn To Follow Constitution
(AP)
For some answers to those questions, CBSNews.com turned to Dick Armey, one of the conservative politicians behind the "Contract With America" and the Republican takeover of Congress over a decade ago. A onetime economics professor in Texas, Armey was elected to the House of Representatives and rose to become House majority leader. Now he's head of FreedomWorks, a free-market advocacy group in Washington, D.C. that has criticized Democratic health care proposals and the cap and trade bill.
As part of our occasional series -- a previous interview was with former John McCain aide Dan Schnur -- I interviewed Armey earlier this month. Following is the transcribed interview.
Q: Who's really leading the Republican Party these days?
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Michigan Court Upholds No-Guns-For-Felons State Law
(IStockPhoto)
Take the recent case involving a Michigan man named Ricky Lee Baldwin, convicted by a jury of assault with intent to commit murder and unlawful possession of a firearm during a felony. He allegedly shot his wife in the neck and right ear after she admitted to an affair; a local news report said the 51-year old woman survived.
Federal law, and many state statutes, prohibit previously convicted felons (a category that includes Baldwin) from possessing firearms. In last year's D.C. v. Heller opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court indicated, without explicitly stating, that such a prohibition complies with the Second Amendment.
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Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review
(AP Photo/Roberto Candia)
The scientist who will head the American Physical Society's review of its 2007 statement calling for immediate reductions of carbon dioxide is Princeton's Robert Socolow, a prominent supporter of the link between CO2 and global warming who has warned of possible "catastrophic consequences" of climate change.
Socolow's research institute at Princeton has received well over $20 million in grants dealing with climate change and carbon reduction, plus an additional $2 million a year from BP and still more from the federal government. In an interview published by Princeton's public relations office, Socolow called CO2 a "climate problem" that governments need to address.
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Sarah Palin On ClimateGate, Copenhagen: Beware Politicized Science
(AP Photo/Harper)
The former Republican vice presidential candidate writes, about the leaked document scandal known as ClimateGate, that: "The e-mails reveal that leading climate 'experts' deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to 'hide the decline' in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics... The documents show that there was no real consensus even within the (Climate Research Unit) crowd. Some scientists had strong doubts about the accuracy of estimates of temperatures from centuries ago, estimates used to back claims that more recent temperatures are rising at an alarming rate." (See CBS News' prior coverage.)
Palin's article appears, of course, as the climate change summit in Copenhagen is beginning. While it's uncertain what the outcome will be, a recent report from a U.N. working group outlines what many delegates would like to see in a final agreement: Wealthier nations including the United States will make "mandatory contributions" to a "multilateral climate change fund" paid for by the requirement that "developed country parties shall restructure their taxation regime." The report warns: "Delay by developed country parties in implementing their commitments to reduce emissions will increase their climate debt to the developing country parties."
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Physicists Stick to Warming Claim Post-ClimateGate
(CBS)
When CBSNews.com asked on Monday whether it will rethink the statement calling for immediate reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, the American Physical Society said it would not. APS spokeswoman Tawanda Johnson replied with a pre-ClimateGate announcement from November 10 reiterating support for the 2007 statement; neither APS president-elect Curtis Callan nor Johnson would answer other questions on the topic.
Pressure on this venerable society of physicists, which was founded in 1899 at Columbia University, is coming from members who are squarely in the scientific mainstream and are alarmed at the state of climate science revealed in the leaked e-mail messages and program files from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. (See CBS News' prior coverage.)
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D.C. Court Ruling Could Affect Out-Of-State Gun Buying
(AP)
A gun rights group has sued the Justice Department to overturn this prohibition, which became law as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the case is now in front of U.S. District Judge James Robertson in Washington, D.C.
Narrowly speaking, the Second Amendment Foundation has filed the Hodgkins v. Holder suit on behalf of American citizens who live abroad and would like to buy firearms when they return for a visit (but can't because Form 4473 requires them to list what U.S. state they live in). More broadly, it could restore Americans' right to buy handguns while traveling across state lines as long as they undergo the normal federal background check.
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ClimateGate Could Threaten Copenhagen Climate Deal
(CBS/iStockphoto)
Although a sweeping international deal already appeared unlikely, agreement on even less ambitious measures will be complicated by the growing ClimateGate scandal and questions that have been raised about the reliability of computer models linking global warming to man-made activities. No less an authority than the U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, acknowledged on Sunday that the data leak was damaging; domestically, Republicans are pressing the Obama administration to reevaluate its position. (See CBS News' previous coverage.)
The summit in Denmark that began Monday, properly titled the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, is expected to draw some 100 heads of state, including President Obama. One unanswered question: How willing are wealthier, developed nations to curb their economic output and tax their citizens to pay poorer countries to emit less carbon dioxide?
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