Colorado

Colorado lawmakers have delayed a vote on legislation that would criminalize the use of drones and other surveillance technology to photograph or monitor people, the Associated Press reports. The legislation would make it a crime first-degree trespassing to take images of someone with a reasonable expectation of privacy. One legislator said the bill, as drafted, would be a "'teribbly sweeping criminalization of photography.'"

The sponsor asked for a delay in the vote on the bill in order to rework it.

The New York legislature is considering bills to restrict the use of drones by law enforcement, the Tenth Amendment Center reports: "Introduced on Jan. 7, Senate Bill 411 (SB411) by Sen. Gordon Denlinger (R-Syosset) and Assembly Bill 1247 (A01247) would ban law enforcement from using a drone in a criminal investigation with a few exceptions, and would prohibit any 'person, entity, or state agency' from using a drone for surveillance anyplace a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy unless they meet specific requirements."

The Colorado Senate is also considering limits for drones, the Associated Press' Kristen Wyatt reports. The bill also would require law enforcement to have warrants before using drones.

Maine is considering a bill that would go even farther, the Tenth Amendment Center also reports. The bill would place a moratorium on all drone use until July 1, 2017, except for emergency situations. After that, law enforcement agencies would need a court order or a warrant to be able to use drones. The law also would create a private right of action for violations of the law.

The New York Times' Jack Healy reports about how Longmont, Colorado, and several other local governments that passed bans on fracking for natural gas are being sued: "state officials, energy companies and industry groups are taking Longmont and other municipalities to court, forcing local governments into what critics say are expensive, long-shot efforts to defend the measures." The bans in Longmont, Lafayette and in Fort Collins, Colorado, were overturned in court. Lafayette City Council even voted against appealing a legal judgment against its restriction on oil and gas development out of concern with the legal costs.

Voters in Oregon and Colorado rejected measures that would have required labeling of genetically modified food, Reuters' Carey Gillam reports. The vote was much closer in Oregon than in Colorado. Instead, the fight will shift to the federal level, Gillam reports: "Labeling proponents are pursuing a federal mandate for labeling of GMO foods, while labeling opponents are backing a proposed law that would nullify any mandatory labeling laws, including one approved by Vermont lawmakers earlier this year."

There has been a flurry of legal activity eroding Colorado's ban on same-sex marriage. Most recently, a federal judge rejected Colorado Attorney General John Suthers' request to halt proceedings after the judge's decision declaring Colorado's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the Denver Post reports. Both state and federal judges have declared the ban unconstitutional, and "some attorneys and advocates have accused Suthers of standing alone in opposition," the Post further reports.

After a Colorado state judge ruled that the state's same-sex marriage ban is "hanging on by a thread," at least three counties have been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the Associated Press reports.

In one decision, Adams District Judge C. Scott Crabtree ruled Wednesday that the ban violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause and the arguments in support of the ban about protecting family and promoting the procreation of children are just a "'pretext for discriminating against same-sex marriages,'" Fox 31 out of Denver reports. Some counties were already issues licenses after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Utah's ban on same-sex marriage, Fox 31 also reports.

In another decision, Boulder District Judge Andrew Hartman allowed the Boulder County Clerk to continue issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, The Daily Caller reports. Hartman opined that that the ban is "'hanging on by a thread and the court must presume that it remains valid.'"

Journalist Jana Winter was subpoeaned by defense lawyers for James Holmes, the defendant charged with the mass murder of movie theatregoers in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012, about who her law enforcement sources were for a story "which said Holmes sent a notebook to his psychiatrist that indicated he had plans for the shootings," the New York Law Journal reported this week. The New York Court of Appeal heard arguments on whether the New York shield law should apply to Winter when she was subpoeaned in a Colorado criminal court case.

Winter's attorneys argued that New York's shield law protecting reporters from disclosing their confidential sources applies to New York-based reporters covering affairs outside of the state. Attorney Christopher Handman argued, according to the NY Law Journal, that "'the idea that New York, prideful as it was about being the center of the dissemination and the gathering of news throughout the world, would limit its protections to reporters talking to sources in New York about parochial New York affairs flies in the face of the way the Legislature broadly defined news to be worldwide events.'"