On Wednesday, December 12th, members of (de)Occupy Honolulu filed a lawsuit against the City & County of Honolulu, Wesley Chun (Director & Chief Engineer of Department of Facilities Maintenance), Trish Morikawa (County Housing Coordinator), and Sergeant Larry Santos (Honolulu Police Department), over deprivation of civil rights during raids on the encampment, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai`i. On Monday, December 17th, a Temporary Restraining Order has been issued, until the Preliminary Injunction hearing in a month, dealing with raids of Thomas Square. All defendants have either quit their jobs or retired since the last raid at Thomas Square, the day before Thanksgiving.

The lawsuit focus on the city & county’s abuse of Ordinance 10-29 (AKA Bill 39), which limits the use of sidewalks after pushing (de)Occupy to the sidewalk, and Ordinance 11-029 (AKA Bill 54), which allows the Department of Facility Maintenance, Housing, Parks, and HPD to traumatize, steal, and brutalize the vulnerable houseless population

Since the (de)Occupy camp was established on November 5, 2011, the movement has been fighting against Ordinance 11-029, which was used as a tool to repress freedom of speech within hours of being signed into law. City ordinances like Bill 39 and Bill 54 criminalize the houseless. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated in Tony Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, “For many of us, the loss of our personal effects may pose a minor inconvenience. However, . . . the loss can be devastating for the homeless.”

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The hacktivist group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for taking down a Texas school district's website in protest of new controversial student tracking ID badges.

In an e-mail to KENS 5, Anonymous stated that they took down the district's website on Saturday, and also included in the e-mail a link to a recent Kens5.com article on the district's new Smart IDs.

From the email:

"We saw your article ... Anonymous (@tr1xxyAnon) are not going to allow this!"

Via:

In response to an e-mail from Kens5.com seeking further comment, Anonymous said they are fighting for the students and want answers from NISD officials.

"They're tracking students! They have rights too. I want a statement about this, nobody agrees with that, even the parents!" Anonymous said in an e-mail.

A call seeking comment from NISD was not immediately returned.

NISD officials have said that the goal of the new program is to increase attendance in order to secure more funding from the state. Officials said even an 1 or 2 percent boost could increase attendance-based revenue by more than $2 million.

Last week, a student at John Jay High School was granted a restraining order against principal Robert Harris, who had threatened to expel the student for not wearing her SmartID:

A student at John Jay High School has been granted permission by the court to continue classes after she was nearly kicked out for refusing to wear an ID that tracks her whereabouts.

Andrea Hernandez, who identifies herself as a Christian, cited religious reasons for not wearing the new student-tracking ID, according to court documents.

Hernandez said that the barcoded tracking ID badges are viewed as “the mark of the beast” by her religion.