Has anyone ever been fined for not wearing a mask in California? California has a statewide mask order. I wonder if anyone has ever been fined for violating it?
Yes. According to CalMatters, Beverly Hills has issued at least 103 fines to an unspecified combination of individuals and businesses: Beverly Hills has cited 103 individuals and businesses since the city’s fines took effect, city spokesman Keith Sterling said, but he could not provide information on the amount of money involved or whether there were repeat offenders. According to the San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio has also issued many citations, including several that were clearly issued to individuals (emphasis added): One employee had the mask sitting on his chin after receiving a warning. The business and employee were cited. Two citations were issued, one to the the business for employees not wearing masks and one to the owner for not wearing a mask after a warning. All of the employees corrected the issue immediately, except for an American Cookie Factory employee who was not willing to wear a mask correctly. The employee was cited along with the three store owners. As far as I can tell, it's up to local enforcement agencies to enforce the mask order, so cities issuing fines (possibly under their own laws implementing the order) would seem to be the primary way that fines would be issued for such violations.
In this specific case and location, the precise location of the incident was explicitly made a public space via state law not too long before this actual event. They therefore most certainly have no right to privacy. What is interesting to me though is the other side of this, does someone have the right to record others in public spaces, or is it simply not illegal? For instance if I non-destructively and non-violently "jam" your camera by shooting a low-power IR beam at your lens, have I abridged a legal right of yours? I don't think it would be illegal to do this. I am not even positive its against the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment relates only to the dissemination of information, not the collection of it. The Constitution doesn't seem to compel the gov't to make information available, or even to make things/events/spaces observable. The various "sunshine" laws after-all had to be enacted, it wasn't part of an interpretation of the 1st Amendment. To put a finer point on it, is recording events in public spaces legal or merely lawful?
The CCPA is in many ways similar to the GDPR. It applies to firms that profess the personal data of California citizens, just as the GDPR applies to firms that process the data of EU residents. If you expect to have any significant number of users from California you will probably we wise to comply. Fortunately, most of the needed steps to comply with the CCPA will also be needed to comply with the GDPR, there should be little additional effort needed. Even a site that hosts no ads and sells no information must still do some things to comply. The California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 (CalOPPA) primarily requires that a site include a clear privacy policy, and there there be an easily found link to such a policy from a sites main or home page. According to the Wikipedia article linked above: Neither the web server nor the company that created the website has to be in California in order to be under the scope of the law. The website only has to be accessible by California residents. The law apparently does not contain any enforcement provisions of its own. The Wikipedia article states that: CalOPPA is expected to be enforced through California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL), which prohibits unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business acts or practices. UCL may be enforced for violations of CalOPPA by government officials seeking civil penalties or equitable relief, or by private parties seeking private claims. Thus CalOPPA is not really a Data Protection law like the GDPR or the CCPA. Rather it requires disclosure of privacy practices, whatever they may be. See Also &quot;Making your Privacy Practices Public&quot; by KD Harris.
A school district has been sued for something like that. In Church of God, Etc. v. Amarillo Indep. Sch., 511 F. Supp. 613, plaintiffs successfully sued the school district "to enjoin the enforcement of the Amarillo School District's absence policy which limits the number of excused absences for religious holidays to two days each school year", where "A fundamental tenet of the Church of God is that members must abstain from secular activity on seven annual holy days". The school district imposed an absence polity where "School work missed may be made up whether an absence is excused or unexcused", and "Excused absences shall be granted to students for a maximum of 2 days for religious holidays in each school year". The court concluded that "This policy poses an unquestionable burden on the Plaintiffs' religious belief", and "This burden is not ameliorated by the make-up work provision. The provision does not require a teacher to evaluate the work made up. It in fact directs the teacher to enter a zero for that work". In this case "Summary judgment is granted and judgment rendered enjoining the enforcement of the Amarillo Independent School District's excused absence policy insofar as it limits the number of excused absences for religious holidays". This is not a matter of religious discrimination, this is a First Amendment issue. The policy is in violation of the Free Exercise clause. Eliminating spring break per se is not a problem: doing so and providing no excused absences is the problem. In the above case, there was clear a religious principle of the church to the effect that one must be off the clock on the holiday. As far as I know, there is no requirement to abstain from work or school on Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday or Good Friday. Nevertheless, in recognition of New Jersey state law which allows any student to take off a religious holiday – including Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, and dozens more – the Board of Education has prepared a list of such holidays, which includes Wiccan, Hindu, Baha'i, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Church of Scientology (and so on) religious holidays.
In the UK this is just called &quot;an appeal for the suspect to come forward.&quot; The UK police are not allowed to lie or mislead as suggested in the OP, and any reduction in punishment is in the hands of the courts when passing sentence (unlike some other jurisdictions, I believe).
Public nudity is not generally prohibited in most of Europe, only exhibitionism is (exhibitionism: openly presenting your private parts in a way to stimulate sexual desire). Now that does not mean you can really walk around nude everywhere. If there are other people around, you may be fined for &quot;public harassment&quot;. That will typically only give a small fine, though. Particularly in Germany, but also in parts of France, beaches are normally fine. While there are often separate areas for nude bathing, usually people don't really care, unless there are a lots of children around. In Germany, almost nobody wears something for a swim before breakfast. And IIRC wearing nothing in your house or even in your garden is perfectly fine, even if it can be seen from outside. So while you might be looked at strangely if you only wear those shorts (particularly in the middle of a town) I don't think much will happen.
An individual does not have authority to "issue" a restraining order. In the U.S. only judges can issue such orders. The guidelines and policies for obtaining a restraining order vary by jurisdiction, although in the end a judge can issue any order he wants. So in theory you might be able to find a judge who will issue an order for any or no reason. In practice I'd be surprised if many judges would abuse their office to gratuitously harass people in this fashion, though there are probably a few amusing/disturbing examples out there to the contrary.
They can’t But they aren’t This is the law (as amended). Section 9 contains the penalties. In any event the police don’t fine people they issue an infringement notice which is an allegation of an offense - police can issue these even if they reasonably believe they took place - they are entitled to be wrong. The person given the notice can admit the offense by paying the fine or contest the allegation by going to court.