Legislation

As part of a package of computer crimes legislation put forward by the Attorney General's office, whistleblowers would be treated the same as malicious hackers, subjecting them to felony penalties for gaining "unauthorized access" to a computer.

APRA is a critical law, essential to promoting open government and an informed citizenry. Despite updates to the law in 2012, an audit by the ACLU and other groups found the law’s enforcement policies insufficient to ensure compliance from dozens of agencies.

This legislation would make public any records generated or obtained by the Rhode Island state police or Attorney General in their investigation of the 38 Studios scandal.

Currently, the state Board of Elections is virtually the only major state agency exempt from the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires state agencies to adopt rules and regulations through an open, public process.

As is true every year, a number of bills were introduced that focused on limiting or protecting a woman’s reproductive rights. A pro-active bill would codify the principles of Roe v. Wade into law.

According to a report from the General Accountability Office released in the spring of 2016, RI was set to become one of 18 states in the process of negotiating MOUs with the FBI to facilitate their access to driver’s license images for purposes of facial recognition matching.

This misnomered legislation from the Attorney General would make it a crime to electronically transmit nude or sexually explicit images without the person’s consent, regardless of the sender’s intent.

Every year numerous bills are introduced into the General Assembly that seek to expand the use of background checks in professions and or volunteering opportunities that rather than promote public safety, further push ex-offenders outside of a positive community atmosphere.

Under the proposed legislation, juveniles who are sentenced as adults would automatically come before the parole board after fifteen years, regardless of the length of their sentence, giving these young adults the chance to prove their fitness to return to society.