- Independent journalist Nick Shirley, backed by America First Legal, sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Sept. 4 in federal court in Sacramento, asking a judge to block AB 2624 before it ever takes effect.
- AB 2624 folds workers at immigration support organizations into California's Safe at Home address-confidentiality program starting Oct. 1, 2027, letting them hide their home addresses and sue anyone who publishes their personal information anyway.
- Shirley's suit argues the law's written takedown-demand system amounts to unconstitutional, viewpoint-based speech regulation — not a neutral privacy measure, despite a lopsided final vote in the Assembly that outlets have reported inconsistently.
- CHIRLA, the Los Angeles immigrant-rights group that helped push for the bill, says its staff have faced harassment severe enough that a stranger once turned up at director Angelica Salas's mother's home looking for her.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom put his signature on a privacy bill on Aug. 22 that almost nobody calls by its official name. Assembly Bill 2624 lets employees of nonprofits, legal clinics and other groups that serve immigrants keep their home addresses out of public records, and it lets them sue anyone who posts that information regardless. Opponents, including the YouTuber the bill is widely believed to target, call it the Stop Nick Shirley Act instead. On Sept. 4, that YouTuber turned plaintiff, asking a federal court to strike the law down before it ever takes effect. The fight matters well beyond one influencer's camera: many of the largest organizations the statute shields — CHIRLA chief among them — primarily serve Latino immigrant families, so how this case ends will shape both the privacy those workers get and the scrutiny their organizations face for years to come.
