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`Case 2:20-cv-02746 Document 1 Filed 03/24/20 Page 1 of 44 Page ID #:1
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`Roberta A. Kaplan (pro hac vice forthcoming)
`rkaplan@kaplanhecker.com
`John C. Quinn (pro hac vice forthcoming)
`jquinn@kaplanhecker.com
`Benjamin D. White (pro hac vice forthcoming)
`bwhite@kaplanhecker.com
`KAPLAN HECKER & FINK LLP
`350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 7110
`New York, NY 10118
`Telephone: (212) 763-0883
`
`Marc S. Williams (Bar No. 198913)
`mwilliams@cohen-williams.com
`Neil S. Jahss (Bar No. 162744)
`njahss@cohen-williams.com
`COHEN WILLIAMS LLP
`724 South Spring Street, 9th Floor
`Los Angeles, CA 90014
`Telephone: (213) 232-5160
`Facsimile: (213) 232-5167
`
`Attorneys for Plaintiff
`Social Bicycles LLC d/b/a JUMP
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`UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
`CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA – WESTERN DIVISION
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`SOCIAL BICYCLES LLC d/b/a JUMP,
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`Plaintiff,
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`v.
`CITY OF LOS ANGELES; CITY OF LOS
`ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF
`TRANSPORTATION,
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`Defendants.
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` Case No. 2:20-CV-02746
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`COMPLAINT FOR INJUNCTIVE
`AND DECLARATORY RELIEF
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`DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
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`INTRODUCTION
`This case arises from an effort by the Los Angeles Department of
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`Transportation to seize personal geolocation data about individual Angelenos as they go
`about their daily lives.
`Plaintiff Social Bicycles LLC d/b/a JUMP (“JUMP”) owns and makes
`2.
`available to Angelenos a fleet of GPS-enabled electric scooters and pedal-assist bikes that
`riders can locate on their smartphones, rent for short periods of time, and use to complete
`short trips that might otherwise occur in a car. As a condition of doing business, Defendants
`the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (“LADOT,” and with the City of Los
`Angeles, the “City of Los Angeles,” or the “City”) compel dockless mobility operators like
`JUMP to produce precise time-stamped geolocation data that tracks the location of their e-
`bikes and e-scooters in real time while riders are on them.
`3. While this data is not, on its face, connected to a particular user by name, phone
`number, credit card, or other identifying information, LADOT or others can nonetheless use
`historical time-stamped geolocation data to identify individual users’ travel patterns and
`then connect those travel patterns to specific users, thereby “re-identifying” them. And if
`seized in real time, this confidential and sensitive geolocation data enables LADOT to
`electronically surveil dockless mobility users on a massive scale while they are on a trip.
`LADOT’s large-scale seizure of private data is manifestly unlawful.
`4. When given a chance to defend the public policy reasons underlying LADOT’s
`requirement that JUMP provide time-stamped geolocation data in real time in front of an
`administrative hearing officer, LADOT dissembled and its reasoning collapsed. At bottom,
`LADOT and its witnesses could offer no reasoned policy basis for the seizure of dockless
`mobility users’ intimate time-stamped geolocation data in real time. Because there is none.
`Real-time in-trip geolocation data does not assist the City in planning bike lanes, or figuring
`out deployment patterns in different neighborhoods, or dealing with complaints about
`devices that are parked in the wrong place, or monitoring compliance with permit
`requirements. It is a tool for surveillance.
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`LADOT’s data grab did not appear in a vacuum. In recent years, the agency
`5.
`has engaged John Ellis, a “big data futurist,” as a consultant to help write the data-
`acquisition rules at issue here. His private company, Ellis & Associates, was in turn
`acquired by Lacuna—a venture-backed, for-profit entity. Ellis & Associates and Lacuna
`stand to gain economically from the countrywide, potentially even worldwide, adoption of
`data-acquisition rules similar to those Ellis & Associates wrote for LADOT because they
`can bill themselves as the engineer of these data-acquisition rules, and therefore the best
`consultants to help other cities implement similar data seizures. Moreover, Ellis &
`Associates has charged Los Angeles for services promoting its data seizure programs (in
`which Ellis and his company have a financial interest) around the country and abroad.
`6. Working together, LADOT and Ellis & Associates have been strikingly candid
`about their long-term and revolutionary aims: to “actively manage” bikes, scooters, and
`ultimately cars, as part of a “radical, significant, and daunting” effort to affect a “significant
`cultural transformation.” LADOT’s efforts, if allowed to continue, would fundamentally
`change the relationship between citizens and their government. LADOT’s grandiose
`plans—largely concocted and implemented out of public view—run roughshod over
`fundamental legal and constitutional guarantees of privacy cherished by all Americans.
`7. More specifically, LADOT’s mandatory conditions for participants in the
`dockless mobility device market include a series of detailed code requirements set forth in
`a document called the “Mobility Data Specification” (“MDS”), which lives in a technical
`data room established for computer programmers called “Github” and is not easily
`accessible to the public. LADOT changes the MDS on a whim. Indeed, LADOT initially
`made the changes that are most fundamental to this complaint in a “webinar,” prepared and
`delivered by its consultant just days before first-year permit applications were due and
`which LADOT then modified a few weeks later by e-mail. When LADOT’s witnesses were
`put under oath, even they struggled to identify an authoritative source for the MDS
`requirements in connection with the then-operative one-year permit. It is difficult to
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`imagine that a member of the public could determine what data LADOT is collecting about
`them.
`The MDS requirements relevant here compel participants to build and
`8.
`implement two specific “application program interfaces” (“APIs”). Generally speaking, an
`API is a piece of code that allows two software systems to communicate with each other.
`The two compulsory APIs at the center of this lawsuit are the “Provider API,” which came
`first and provides historical information which LADOT can “pull,” and the “Agency API,”
`which came later, goes much farther, and forces operators to automatically transmit, or
`“push,” the data of its devices directly to LADOT. When implemented as currently required
`by LADOT, these APIs provide LADOT and its consultants with a massive trove of
`confidential data about JUMP’s devices and users, including precisely where each device
`travels to and from, through which route, and at what time. Most troubling, LADOT
`requires operators to transmit certain geolocation data about their dockless devices, such as
`trip-start data, in real time as riders use them.
`In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has warned of the grave
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`dangers of allowing the Government free-wheeling access to geolocation data like the data
`that LADOT seizes pursuant to the MDS. In Carpenter v. United States, for example, the
`Supreme Court astutely observed, in a detailed opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, that
`geolocation data provides an “intimate window into a person’s life, revealing not only his
`particular movements, but through them his ‘familial, political, professional, religious, and
`sexual associations.” 138 S. Ct. 2206, 2217 (2018). Similarly, in United States v. Jones,
`Justice Sotomayor explained why this data raises such grave privacy concerns: the
`“Government can store such records and efficiently mine them for information years into
`the future,” and “because GPS monitoring is cheap in comparison to conventional
`surveillance techniques and, by design, proceeds surreptitiously, it evades the ordinary
`checks that constrain abusive law enforcement practices: ‘limited police resources and
`community hostility.’” 565 U.S. 412, 415-16 (2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring).
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`10. The Supreme Court has also been clear that businesses have a fundamental
`privacy right in their business records, and thus must be given an opportunity for “pre-
`compliance review” prior to the Government effectuating a compulsory search of those
`records. City of Los Angeles v. Patel, 135 S. Ct. 2443, 2452 (2015). As a result, a
`municipality may not compel a technology company to turn over its user data with a set of
`“sweeping” requirements that are “devoid of any tailoring” to suspected wrongdoing,
`especially without providing any opportunity for pre-compliance review. AirBnb, Inc. v.
`City of New York, 373 F. Supp. 3d 467, 491 (S.D.N.Y. 2019). LADOT’s seizure of JUMP’s
`proprietary time-stamped geolocation data, without any tailoring or opportunity for review,
`thus runs headlong into the crossroads of two lines of clear and powerful Fourth
`Amendment precedent.
`11. Throughout LADOT’s creation and implementation of its dockless mobility
`program, JUMP has repeatedly explained to LADOT the profound privacy risks inherent in
`the collection of historical trip records, combined with time-stamped geolocation data
`collected in real time, and has repeatedly raised objections to these requirements with
`LADOT. JUMP’s pleas have been met with effective silence. And JUMP has made plain
`that it does not believe that it can be lawfully compelled to transmit the real-time geolocation
`data of its dockless devices. But with LADOT unwilling to budge, and JUMP’s business
`in Los Angeles at stake, JUMP went as far as it believed it reasonably could to accommodate
`LADOT’s demands: JUMP agreed to provide, and has been providing, trip-start, trip-end,
`and route data at a 24-hour latency, i.e., it has sent LADOT the required data but only twenty
`four hours after a rider’s trip-start, trip-end, and route events occur. With this slight delay
`in data production, there is at least a theoretical possibility that JUMP could seek to
`challenge a specific LADOT request before complying, an opportunity unavailable where
`LADOT requires data production in real time. Moreover, by providing geolocation data
`after a 24-hour latency period, rather than in real time, JUMP has significantly mitigated
`the frightening risks of direct and constant government surveillance or possible interception
`of individual users. And JUMP has complied with every other aspect of LADOT’s
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`permitting regime, which includes the provision of extensive data about, for example, the
`location of deployed devices that are parked and not being used by riders, as well as data
`points such as battery level and maintenance status.
`12. This was not good enough for LADOT. In fact, JUMP’s vocal privacy
`objections only appeared to make matters worse. On October 25, 2019, the agency issued
`a notice suspending JUMP’s permit in light of its failure to provide real-time data and
`ordering the removal of its bikes and scooters from City streets within 72 hours, after which
`the department of sanitation would begin rounding them up.
`JUMP immediately gave LADOT notice that it would seek emergency judicial
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`relief to protect its permit and enforce its Fourth Amendment rights. In response, LADOT
`capitulated on its threats to immediately remove JUMP’s devices and hastily fashioned an
`administrative review process (established without public notice and uncodified in any
`statute, rule, or otherwise). LADOT allowed JUMP to remain on City streets during the
`pendency of that process. That process ultimately consisted of a two-day hearing in which
`multiple LADOT witnesses could offer no reasoned policy justification for compelling
`production of trip data in real time, and in which JUMP vociferously argued, as it does here,
`that the LADOT data acquisition rules violated, among other things, JUMP’s Fourth
`Amendment rights and CalECPA. Nonetheless, an LADOT hearing officer upheld the
`suspension of JUMP’s permit without addressing any of JUMP’s arguments as to the
`lawfulness of the MDS.
`JUMP promptly notified LADOT that it intended to appeal the hearing
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`officer’s decision to the LADOT Board of Transportation Commissioners, which was the
`next step in LADOT’s ad hoc suspension review process. The hearing was scheduled for
`March 12, 2020, just three days before JUMP’s one-year permit would expire and one day
`before applications for a new six-month permit extension would be due. In light of the
`approaching expiration of the one-year permits, and the growing threat posed by the
`COVID-19 virus, JUMP and LADOT agreed to adjourn the Board appeal, that JUMP would
`submit an application for a six-month extension permit, and that JUMP would agree to
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`comply with the disputed MDS data production requirements as a condition of receiving
`that permit, while reserving any and all rights to challenge the legality of those
`requirements. LADOT also agreed not to use JUMP’s past technical non-compliance
`against it in evaluating JUMP’s application for a six-month extension permit. As of this
`filing, JUMP’s application for a six-month extension permit is pending—although JUMP
`expects it to be granted in light of LADOT’s assurances—and JUMP continues to operate
`in Los Angeles.
`JUMP now challenges LADOT’s creation of, and efforts to enforce, the
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`MDS’s real-time geolocation requirements, which trample on a slew of basic and
`fundamental rights:
`a. LADOT’s warrantless seizure of JUMP’s proprietary business records
`constitutes an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment
`of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, § 13 of the California Constitution,
`as well as an unlawful compulsion of electronic records that violates and
`is preempted by the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act,
`Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et seq.
`b. The City’s unbounded delegation to LADOT to fashion rules that have
`led to the seizure of JUMP’s intimate geolocation data, and LADOT’s
`further re-delegation of that unbounded authority to for-profit, industry
`participants, violated California’s non-delegation doctrine.
`PARTIES
`16. Plaintiff JUMP is an LLC whose sole member, SMB Holding Corporation, is
`a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in California.
`17. Defendant the City of Los Angeles is a municipal corporation organized and
`existing under the laws of the State of California and is a charter city pursuant to Article XI
`of the California Constitution.
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`I.
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`18. Defendant LADOT is a government agency created by Los Angeles City
`Ordinance whose “mission is to lead transportation planning, project delivery, and
`operations in the City of Los Angeles.”
`JURISDICTION AND VENUE
`19. This Court has federal question jurisdiction over this action under 28 U.S.C.
`§ 1331 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because Plaintiff alleges violation of its rights under the
`Constitution and laws of the United States.
`20. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367, this Court has supplemental jurisdiction over
`Plaintiff’s claims arising under the California State Constitution and California state law
`because they are so related to the federal claims asserted in this action that they form part
`of the same case or controversy under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
`21. Venue is proper in this District under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(1) because both
`Defendants are residents of this district, and under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) because a
`substantial part of the events giving rise to Plaintiff’s claims occurred in this district and a
`substantial part of property that is the subject of this action is situated in this district.
`FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
`JUMP’s Participation in the “Dockless Mobility” Market
`“Dockless mobility” devices, such as electric bikes and scooters (“e-bikes” and
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`“e-scooters,” respectively), are micro-mobility transportation devices that are not tethered
`to fixed locations like docking stations. Rather, each dockless mobility device is equipped
`with an electric battery, an integrated lock, and onboard GPS. Thus, using a smartphone
`application, riders can locate available devices, begin their rides anywhere an available
`device can be found, and end their rides at their precise destinations. As a result, users can
`take these devices door-to-door or as a “last mile” solution connecting them to nearby
`transportation hubs. Cities have had broad success with micro-mobility generally, including
`dockless mobility, and its use has been growing rapidly.
`JUMP operates a fleet of e-bikes and e-scooters and provides software enabling
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`riders to locate, reserve, use, and pay for them. JUMP was the world’s first electric-assisted
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`bikeshare company and is currently a major player in the dockless mobility market. Given
`that each of its devices runs on an electric battery, JUMP must arrange for these batteries to
`be charged, often overnight in JUMP’s warehouse. It must also maintain the devices, which
`requires that it pick up its deployed devices (or arrange for them to be picked up), and then
`re-deploy them throughout the City, based on its business decisions to meet anticipated
`demand or to comply with regulatory requirements, such as those designed to avoid over-
`accumulation of devices in a particular area or to achieve equitable distribution targets. In
`Los Angeles and in other cities, JUMP provides data to cities and to the public as to the
`location of its available-for-rent devices.
`24. Following a successful launch in San Francisco in early 2018, JUMP began
`seeking opportunities around the country to expand its dockless mobility services. The City
`of Los Angeles—with its large population, fair weather, generally-level topography, and
`underdeveloped public transportation infrastructure—was an appealing location for
`expansion. Thus, in the middle of 2018, JUMP began assessing a strategy for market entry.
`II. The City of Los Angeles’ Development of a Regulatory Regime for Dockless
`Mobility Devices
`A. The City Tasks LADOT With Creating Rules for Dockless Devices
`In late 2017, after dockless devices (operated by other companies) began
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`appearing on City streets, LADOT asked the L.A. City Council to direct LADOT to draft
`rules and regulations for a dockless bike share program. The City Council did so on
`December 13, 2017.
`LADOT Partners with Ellis & Associates
`B.
`26. Shortly after being given authority to create rules for a dockless mobility
`program, on March 9, 2018, LADOT signed a three-year contract with a for-profit
`consultancy called Ellis & Associates. See http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinecontracts/2018/C-
`130956_c_3-9-18.pdf; see also Laura Bliss, Why Real-Time Traffic Control Has Mobility
`Experts Spooked, CityLab, Jul. 19, 2019, available at bit.ly/citylabMDS. Ellis & Associates
`was retained to lead the LADOT’s efforts in establishing a dockless mobility program.
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`27. Ellis & Associates is led by John Ellis, the former “chief technologist” of the
`Ford Motor Company, and the author of a recent book describing how “[u]ser data mined
`from vehicles – based on location, intentions and preferences – is gold to marketers and
`money to anyone that can harvest, analyze, and process it.” John Ellis, THE ZERO DOLLAR
`CAR: HOW THE REVOLUTION IN BIG DATA WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE (2017). Ellis describes
`himself as a “big data futurist,” and has produced an October 2017 “TEDx talk” at a TedX
`event that was titled “Who’s in the Driver’s Seat? The Transformation of Transportation.”
`In that TEDx talk, Ellis declares that “data is the new oil,” and that the
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`“transportation data bonanza is too big and too important to miss out.” Ellis describes
`privacy as a mere obstacle to be overcome, recommending that we “accept the fact that
`humans will be tempted to sell data and they will succumb to that temptation, and therefore
`we should stop trying to regulate privacy and rather treat it as a product.”
`29. On information and belief, in December 2019, Ellis & Associates sold itself to
`Lacuna Technologies, a venture-backed entity which bills itself as a visionary civic mobility
`company seeking to provide “[t]he missing link between public interest and private
`innovation.” Although Lacuna portrays itself as independent, it is in fact controlled and
`operated by individuals such as Ellis, who now, due to their work advising and writing rules
`for agencies like LADOT, have deep ties to the municipalities with which they aim to
`partner. Indeed, on information and belief, until just recently, Lacuna’s operatives,
`including Ellis, publicly touted their insider status with municipalities, including LADOT,
`in an effort to grow their venture-backed business.
`30. The goals of Ellis & Associates and Lacuna are clear: first, they work through
`their municipal partners and insiders to ensure that cities such as Los Angeles and others
`seize as much lucrative data as possible from private industry. Then, Ellis & Associates
`and Lacuna ensure that those cities allow them to access the data, with as few restrictions
`on data use as possible, so that they can use it for the benefit of their own business. As Ellis
`has himself stated: “The only thing that stands between us and the sale of our personal data
`is in fact a policy . . . that can be easily overturned.”
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`31. Ellis & Associates and Lacuna stand to profit if cities beyond Los Angeles
`adopt similar data sharing rules. Ellis & Associates and Lacuna can market themselves as
`the engineers of the system and thus a key consultant partner for other cities, with a view
`towards securing lucrative consultancy agreements like the one obtained from Los Angeles.
`Worse still, Ellis & Associates and Lacuna could seek to monetize the user data they obtain
`from such cities, subject only to limits placed on such data usage by these cities themselves.
`And to the extent that Ellis & Associates and/or Lacuna seek to monetize the data that cities
`compel from private entities like JUMP, they would in effect be competitors of those private
`entities, while still crafting the very rules mandating and governing the seizure of that data.
`In fact, Ellis & Associates has already profited handsomely from its
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`relationship with LADOT. And not just from its seven-figure contracts, but also by
`leveraging its contractual relationship as an opportunity to “coach” and “train” LADOT
`personnel on the “values and key messaging” behind LADOT’s grandiose efforts. Notably,
`for these training and coaching sessions, LADOT paid Ellis & Associates $60,000. Ellis
`has also invoiced LADOT for his efforts to promote MDS in other cities across the country
`and abroad.
`33. Among Ellis & Associates’ first tasks for LADOT was drafting the rules that
`the City Council directed LADOT to make. LADOT shared its proposed rules with the City
`Council on May 18, 2018. Next, Ellis & Associates was tasked with preparing LADOT’s
`“Strategic Implementation Plan: A Plan to realize the visions outlined in the Urban Mobility
`for a Digital Age and Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism documents” (the “Strategic
`Implementation Plan”), which was released in June 2018.
`34. The Strategic Implementation Plan is a striking document—by its terms, it
`outlines a “radical, significant, and daunting” plan to transform the relationship between
`LADOT and City residents. It imagines a “next-generation urban mobility system,” referred
`to as “Transportation 2.0.” According to the Strategic Implementation Plan, “[t]he
`foundation of Transportation 2.0 is that LADOT will explicitly manage the movement of
`vehicles in the Los Angeles transportation product.” The Strategic Implementation Plan
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`acknowledges (if significantly understates) the fact that Transportation 2.0 would be “a
`marked departure from the current policy context of managing the movement of people and
`goods through the system.”
`Indeed, Transportation 2.0 is part of a self-described “significant cultural
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`transformation” that LADOT and its consultants intend to affect, and which would work to
`their financial benefit. “Transportation 2.0 is an umbrella term that encapsulates the
`creation and convergence of dozens of disruptive technologies.” In the Strategic
`Implementation Plan, LADOT and its consultants claim to be “aware of the unintended
`ways this will change our culture and world at large,” and identify several ways to meet the
`demands of this “cultural transformation,” including the creation of a new “shared
`language” and “[r]eaching for new values.”
`the Strategic
`is what
`36. A central component of Transportation 2.0
`Implementation Plan calls “Active Management.” “Active Management” refers to the
`ultimate goal of taking broad control over the movement of people throughout Los Angeles.
`According to the Strategic Implementation Plan, “[c]ontrol is a fundamental aspect of
`today’s transportation network and will become even more critical in the future,” and so
`LADOT wants “a radically different and faster approach to control.” In practice, “Active
`Management” reflects LADOT’s effort to position itself so that it can physically control a
`broad array of transportation devices, even as users ride them, starting with bikes and
`scooters and ultimately expanding to driverless cars and beyond.
`37. The touchstone of LADOT’s Active Management plan is “[b]uild[ing] a solid
`data foundation.” To do this, LADOT intends to effect a massive seizure of confidential
`and sensitive real-time data from private entities that have acquired that proprietary data
`after significant resource investment, including the building of costly infrastructure. The
`Strategic Implementation Plan boldly envisions seizing that data directly from private
`industry participants such as JUMP, as well as JUMP’s parent company, Uber, which the
`SIP refers to collectively as the “Transportation Technology Bench.”
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`In short, the large-scale seizure of private data that gives rise to this lawsuit
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`seems to be only the beginning.
`C. Ellis & Associates Creates the “Mobility Data Specification” for LADOT
`39. To take the first step outlined in the Strategic Implementation Plan, LADOT
`tasked Ellis & Associates with writing a “new data language”: the Mobility Data
`Specification, or “MDS.” See Bliss, Mobility Experts Spooked. This new language was the
`tool that LADOT would ultimately use to seize reams of sensitive data from dockless
`mobility providers such as JUMP.
`40. The MDS, as implemented, forces dockless mobility providers to write code
`into their systems that provides LADOT unfettered, on-demand, and real-time access to
`private time-stamped geolocation data about each and every device, including when riders
`are on them.
`41. More specifically, the MDS consists of a “data specification”—a set of
`requirements for the types of data that can be stored in a particular database—and centers
`on application programming interfaces (“APIs”). APIs are common amongst programmers
`and are essentially pieces of software (i.e., a set of code) that allow one software application
`to communicate with another (e.g., an operating system or another application). At a basic
`level, APIs work by defining the rules and methods for one piece of software to issue
`commands to, request information from, or submit information to, another piece of
`software.
`42. Ellis & Associates first created what it called the “Provider API,” which
`requires dockless mobility operators to collect data and make it available in a segregated
`database, and then allows LADOT to query that data on demand, often called a “pull”
`technology. JUMP refers to this internally as the “Provider” database.
`43. Most relevant here, and in its present incarnation, the Provider API enables
`LADOT and its consultants to make queries about individual “trips,” a technical term of art
`that refers to a bundle of data points about a ride taken by a customer, including (i) the
`Provider ID, (ii) the unique ID of the vehicle, (iii) the distance and duration of the trip,
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`(iv) the cost of the trip, (v) the precise, time-stamped start and end points of the trip (referred
`to herein as “trip-start” and “trip-end” events), and (vi) time-stamped GPS “breadcrumbs”
`showing the precise route traveled by the rider (referred to herein as “route data” or “route
`events”).1
`D. With LADOT Armed with the MDS and the Provider API, the City
`Formally Delegates Dockless-Mobility Regulatory Authority to LADOT
`In September 2018, the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance authorizing
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`LADOT to implement and issue rules for a pilot permit program for dockless mobility
`operators. The ordinance, codified at § 71.29 of the L.A. Administrative Code (the
`“Ordinance”), provided broad and unbounded authority to the LADOT. Specifically, it
`provided in relevant part:
`[LADOT] shall implement a Shared Mobility Device Pilot Program, and
`issue a permit to a qualified pilot program operator, as defined in the
`Department’s Rules and Guidelines, including, but not limited to, an
`operator of a dockless bicycle, electric bicycle, motorized scooter and
`electric scooter. Under the Pilot Program, an operator of a shared
`mobility device shall obtain a permit from the Department and comply
`with all Depart