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The Rhode Island ACLU today joined with affiliates in 37 other states in filing open records requests with local police departments and state agencies to find out how they use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) to track and record Americans’ movements.

The ACLU of Rhode Island is offering to the public a free 36-page booklet entitled “Your Rights to Workplace Privacy in Rhode Island.” As its title indicates, the booklet answers commonly-asked questions about employees’ privacy rights in the state.

RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement today in response to news reports that Providence police have used special infra-red technology to determine whether people have been sleeping overnight inside the tents in Burnside Park where the “Occupy Providence” protest is taking place:

The RI ACLU has urged the Providence City Council to reject a proposal by Mayor Angel Taveras to authorize a private company to use car-mounted license-plate scanners to enforce overnight parking laws. The proposal, part of the Mayor’s plan for a permanent overnight parking permit program, would authorize a private vendor to use specially-equipped vehicles to automatically scan license plates, checking them against a registration database and flagging those cars parked overnight without a permit.

The Rhode Island ACLU today issued a report examining some of the civil liberties battles that have taken place specifically in Rhode Island in the past decade in response to the government’s “war on terrorism.” Noting that the tenth anniversary of 9/11 offers a time for reflection on the “devastating and horrific loss of life that occurred that day,” the report adds that it also presents an opportunity to reflect on the government’s response and, how “all too often, it has acted in ways inimical to basic civil liberties.”

In a campaign coordinated with its national office, the Rhode Island ACLU today sent open records requests to the RI State Police and the Providence Police Department to obtain information as to how and the extent they are using cell phone location data to track  the movements of Rhode Islanders. The requests are an effort to strip away the secrecy that has generally surrounded law enforcement use of cell phone tracking capabilities across the country.

Governor Lincoln Chafee has signed into law an ACLU bill that will close a loophole in a long-standing state law designed to protect consumers’ privacy and help reduce the problem of identity theft.  The new law bars most merchants from demanding any part of a customer’s social security number in order to complete a sale.

The RI ACLU has called on Governor Lincoln Chafee to veto legislation that would allow police to obtain Internet subscriber service information without the need of a warrant or other judicial oversight. In a letter to the Governor, the ACLU argues that enactment of the bills, S-781A and H-5093A, “would not only lead to a very serious erosion of privacy rights, but will also have a chilling impact on freedom of speech.”