Legislation

The Affiliate achieved its first legislative victory of the session back in February, when the Governor withdrew his extremely dangerous “homeland security” bill just days after he had proposed it.

In an historic collaboration between the civil rights community and local police chiefs, the General Assembly enacted a comprehensive bill designed to tackle the problem of racial profiling in the state.

A bill that would require any person who “lobbies” the executive branch to submit to various reporting and disclosure requirements was significantly amended to address ACLU concerns before being approved.

Three years ago, ignoring constitutional objections raised by the ACLU, the legislature expanded the state’s child pornography law to ban both the possession and distribution of images that merely “appear to be” of a minor engaged in sexual conduct.

The ACLU opposed two Senate bills changing the composition of the state’s criminal justice oversight committee to add a member of a faith-based organization.

Showing that it’s never too late to do the right thing, the General Assembly enacted legislation redrawing Senate district lines around the metropolitan Providence area.

In a rebuff to the Governor, the legislature restored to the FY 2005 budget funding requested by the state judiciary to hire six Spanish-speaking court interpreters.

The ACLU was not displeased to see the House take no action on a Senate bill to establish a “civil rights advocate” in the Attorney General’s office.

For the third year in a row, Affiliate lobbying helped defeat a bill, based in part on a USA Patriot Act provision, to give local law enforcement authorities broad authority to obtain from Internet service providers information, including bank and credit card information, of subscribers.