Gavin Newsom's $189 million "digital equity" tablet program for California prisoners has produced exactly the result every sane person predicted — inmates watching porn, evading security controls, and in at least one case, using taxpayer-funded devices to sexually exploit a child. But when Christopher Rufo and City Journal broke the story this week, the governor's response wasn't to investigate. It was to call it all a lie.
Because of course it was. When has Gavin Newsom ever looked at a disaster with his name on it and said, "Yeah, that's on me"?
Here's what we know. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation started a tablet pilot program in 2018. By 2023, the state had distributed approximately 90,000 tablets to prisoners — roughly one for every inmate in the system — at a cost of about $2,000 per device. The stated purpose was education, rehabilitation, and family communication. The actual purpose, as it turns out, was giving convicted felons a digital playground with minimal oversight.
The City Journal investigation, published May 13, found that condemned prisoners — including death row inmates — are using the devices to watch pornography, conduct sexually explicit conversations, and reach people on the outside who should never be within a thousand miles of these guys. A former deputy director of California's adult parole operations told investigators, "We created a pathway for them to reach out and groom folks."
That's not a critic. That's a former state official who helped run the system.
The most sickening case involves Nathaniel Ray Diaz, an inmate at Avenal State Prison serving a three-year sentence for lewd acts against a 12-year-old girl. According to a federal grand jury indictment, Diaz used his state-issued tablet to contact that same child — the one he had a 10-year no-contact order against — and allegedly forced her to speak with him "for hours, every day." He then demanded sexual photos from the girl. Federal prosecutors are now pursuing charges for sexual exploitation of a minor.
Let that sink in. California handed a convicted child predator a tablet. He used it to go right back to the child he was convicted of abusing. And the state's monitoring system caught exactly none of it in real time.
Death row inmate Sammy Amador told investigators he uses his tablet for "porn" and "short clips of his family at the Beach." At least he's honest about it. More than you can say for Sacramento.
So how did Governor Newsom respond to all of this? His press office fired off a post calling the investigation "flat-out FALSE" and dismissing City Journal as a "MAGA nonprofit" that "provides ZERO evidence for its outrageous claims." The statement insisted that "prison tablets DO NOT provide open internet access" and that "communications are monitored, recorded, searchable, and investigated."
Monitored. Recorded. Searchable. And yet a convicted child predator used one of those monitored devices to groom his victim for months before anyone noticed.
Christopher Rufo wasn't having it. He fired back publicly, laying out his sources: "A former high-ranking California prison official. Federal prosecutors pursuing charges against a prisoner for grooming a minor through his tablet. A dozen current inmates." That's not zero evidence, Governor. That's a former official, a federal indictment, and a dozen witnesses — all saying the same thing.
As one commenter put it perfectly to the governor's office: "Were you monitoring those communications too?"
This is Gavin Newsom's entire career in miniature. Spend an absurd amount of taxpayer money on a program that sounds compassionate in a press release. Ignore every warning sign. Then, when reality comes crashing through the door, call anyone who reports it a liar and hope the news cycle moves on by Thursday.
The CDCR still insists the tablets are "tightly controlled education tools" providing access to "Bible, education, and reentry resources that actually reduce crime." Meanwhile, inmates told investigators that users can easily evade detection. So either the department is lying or it's incompetent. Take your pick — either way, California taxpayers got fleeced for $189 million so death row inmates could browse porn and child predators could reach their victims.
The man wants to be president someday. Remember that the next time he talks about protecting children.
