Legislation

This legislation restricts governmental use of radio frequency identification devices on students. RFID allows a person’s identity and movement to be monitored electronically, and was briefly used by the Middletown school district last year to track elementary school students.

ACLU-promoted legislation was reintroduced to restrict political surveillance and data collection by police.

The Affiliate fought legislation to expand HIV testing while reducing the confidentiality protections in place for patients.

The House and Senate quickly and overwhelmingly overrode a Gubernatorial veto of legislation authorizing state-regulated dispensaries to provide medical marijuana to qualified patients.

Despite ACLU opposition, both the House and Senate have passed a bill authorizing Woonsocket schools to require students to wear school uniforms.

We testified against a bill that aims to set up a government-appointed council to “provide oversight” of private youth sports organizations, including the power to impose fines against coaches, players, parents or officials in response to complaints arising from youth sporting events.

The General Assembly continues to push for harsher penalties around drunk driving in general, but the ACLU was particularly troubled by the punitive nature of bills, part of a package from the City of Providence, addressing underage drinking.

The Affiliate successfully opposed a bill that sought to expand the definition of criminal “harassment” to include not just unwanted direct contact, but also the posting of information on Web sites about people.

The ACLU also successfully objected when a completely revised “welfare reform” provision in the proposed 2009 budget authorized the Department of Human Services to apply for federal funding for so-called “healthy marriage” programs.