Don't Steal Papers in California!!!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed a bill, which punishes by up to 10 days in prison and a fine of up to $500 those who are caught taking more than 25 copies of a free newspaper. The rule aims at providing a protection to papers that might be stolen with the purpose of preventing their readership from reading specific viewpoints.

Assembly Republican leader George Plescia of San Diego clarified that he proposed the law to California after learning that copies of a free newspaper in Chula Vista (San Diego County) were systematically taken to Mexico and sold for recycling. The law seeks to protect free papers from being "stolen because of content” said Morgan Crinklaw, spokesman for Plescia. The new law specifies among the reasons for prosecution the theft of copies with the intention of re-sale, or of preventing the public from reading them.