Legislation

One of the ACLU’s major, though not unexpected, defeats involved the passage of a bill that formalizes the establishment of a centralized health records database in the state.

For the third year in a row, doctors pushed to expand HIV testing, while reducing the confidentiality protections in place for patients and severely limiting HIV counseling requirements.

The ACLU was unsuccessful in tightening up language, added at the last minute to a budget article, authorizing the Department of Health to require newborn screening for a variety of unspecified “conditions.”

ACLU lobbying helped bottle up in committee a State Police proposal to give law enforcement officials broad authority to secretly obtain, without a warrant or even a showing of “probable cause,” subscriber calling records and financial information from telephone and Internet service providers.

The House took no action this year on a Senate-approved measure to restrict the state and municipalities from using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology on students, employees or clients.

For the third year in a row, the City of Providence was unsuccessful in its efforts to expand the penalties for prostitution.

This bill originally contained a number of concerning provisions regarding the organ donation process in Rhode Island.

After a long and arduous process, beginning even before the bill’s introduction, a compromise bill addressing procedures for HIV testing of pregnant women was passed into law.

ACLU lobbying helped to decisively kill one of the most dangerous bills of the session, a pet proposal of the State Police to give law enforcement broad authority to secretly obtain subscriber information, including bank and credit card numbers, from Internet service providers without a warrant.