CAL Legislative Alert - Oppose Bill To Ban Vaporizers In Non-Smoking Areas (SB 648)

A bill that would ban smokeless e-cigarettes and vaporizers in non-smoking areas will be heard by the California Assembly Governmental Organization Committee on Aug. 14th (SB 648-Corbett). Scientific studies have shown that vaporizers provide valuable "harm reduction" benefits to medical marijuana patients and eliminate second-hand smoking hazards. SB 648 would make it impossible for patients to vaporize in most public or private rental spaces, conference rooms, restaurants, hotels, etc., and would encourage local governments and landlords to include vaporizers in anti-smoking rules covering private apartments and multi-unit dwellings. Tell the legislature that restricting vaporizers is harmful to consumer health.

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger on Monday called for new EU rules on data protection and a ban on American companies that violate them.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich also raised corporate accountability in July, when he suggested requiring European firms to report any data they hand over to foreign countries. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who is running for reelection in September as part of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, did not further specify which kinds of penalties she would like American companies to face, though it seems unlikely that Europe would completely ban companies like Google, which dominate the online search market, or Facebook from doing business. Both of those companies were implicated in the documents leaked by former intelligence worker Edward Snowden

It is the latest development in a German election season that has come to be dominated by online privacy issues. Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced widespread criticism from the opposition for her handling of the NSA scandal and Peer Steinbrück, the Chancellor candidate of the opposition SPD party, recently told German television channel ZDF that Merkel should demand written assurances from the Americans they will respect German laws and interests and not engage in industrial espionage.

In another interview with Die Welt, former German High Court Justice Hans-Jürgen Papier defended the current government in its handling of the privacy debate. The state has a "basic responsibility to protect its citizens from the attacks of foreign powers," he said, but it "can only be responsible for doing things that it has the legal power, and is able, to do." It is increasingly easy, he said, for countries to impinge on the freedoms of the citizens of other countries, and those who are spied on have little recourse to defend themselves. In response, Papier called for a new global agreement on data protection.

The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the largest newspaper in the populous Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia, writes:

"Snowden is out of the intermediate world of the Moscow airport and has now entered Russia. Russia of all places, a country that is anything but a flawless democracy. A country in which a former intelligence agent rules the country with an iron fist. But to blame the whistleblower for all this would either be malicious or naïve. Snowden had no other choice."

"Go back to the States? The fate of WikiLeaks informant Bradley Manning shows what happens to people there who uncover government misconduct. Not a single country that could claim to be democratically flawless offered Snowden asylum."