Posted: Jun 07, 2013
|Category: Privacy
As outrage mounts over the disclosure that the federal government obtained millions of phone call information records from Verizon as a routine matter, the Rhode Island General Assembly is poised to pass a bill that would specifically allow both federal and state officials to similarly obtain the location tracking information of any cell phone subscriber for any reason and at any time.
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Posted: Jun 06, 2013
|Category: Privacy
The ACLU of Rhode Island issued a statement today in response to the breaking news story that the U.S. government is secretly collecting records of calls made by Verizon customers.
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Posted: Jun 05, 2013
|Category: Discrimination Racial/Ethnic Discrimination Students' Rights
The ACLU of Rhode Island issued a report today, analyzing eight years of data, showing that in all school districts across Rhode Island, black and Hispanic students are suspended at rates substantially higher than their representation in the student population, while white students are suspended much less often than their representation predicts. Worse, the disproportionate suspensions are often for minor behavioral infractions and begin in elementary school. The ACLU’s examination of school discipline data collected by the Rhode Island Department of Education between 2004 and 2012 also concluded that suspensions are routinely overused as punishment against students statewide.
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Posted: Jun 04, 2013
|Category: Discrimination Racial/Ethnic Discrimination The "War on Drugs"
According to a report released today by the ACLU, blacks in Rhode Island were arrested for marijuana possession at 2.6 times the rate of whites in 2010, and were seven times more likely to be arrested for this offense in the counties with the smallest minority populations.
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Posted: May 21, 2013
|Category: Students' Rights
The ACLU of Rhode Island has joined two dozen community organizations in asking the Rhode Island Board of Education to rescind the regulation that conditions the receipt of a high school diploma on passing a "high stakes test." Although the groups have diverse reasons for opposing the measure, they all agree that the mandate is poor policy and will likely have devastating effects for thousands of students who deserve a diploma.
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Posted: May 20, 2013
|Category: Privacy
The ACLU of Rhode Island issued a statement today in response to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which covers Rhode Island, holding that police are generally required to obtain a warrant before searching the contents of an arrestee’s cell phone.
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Posted: May 16, 2013
|Category:
Four open government organizations today called on Governor Lincoln Chafee to amend legislation he has introduced that would make secret a wide array of government documents and discussions relating to school safety. In a letter to the Governor, the R.I. Press Association, the New England First Amendment Coalition, the ACLU of Rhode Island, and Common Cause Rhode Island called the legislation “a major step backward for parental involvement in critical school matters and for the public’s right to know.”
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All 2013 News Releases
