News & Commentary

Ruling in an ACLU case, a federal judge has struck down a state law that was used by the Town of Richmond to repeatedly remove former Congressional candidate Rod Driver’s political signs from private property during the 2006 election. In a 25-page opinion, Judge William Smith agreed with the ACLU that the statute violated Driver’s First Amendment rights.

Calling the technology “expensive, ineffective, inefficient and intrusive of civil liberties,” the Rhode Island ACLU today issued a report criticizing legislative efforts to make permanent a three-year experiment allowing municipalities to use “red light cameras.” The 19-page report argues that “no compelling rationale has been offered for allowing for the continued use of red light cameras in the state.”

The Rhode Island ACLU has today filed a lawsuit against the Town of Narragansett, challenging the constitutionality of its highly-publicized ordinance which allows police to charge tenants and landlords with allowing, and to place orange stickers on houses that have allegedly been the site of, “unruly gatherings.” The lawsuit, filed in R.I. Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney H. Jefferson Melish, is on behalf of the URI Student Senate, as well as four students and three landlords who have been affected by enforcement of the ordinance. The suit argues that the ordinance violates the plaintiffs’ rights to procedural and substantive due process, privacy and freedom of association. 

Responding to the deaths of two people with mental disabilities last month when confronted by police, eight advocacy organizations today cited a “critical and urgent need for uniform and comprehensive training of all police in Rhode Island to ensure a proper response to persons with mental illness, cognitive impairments or developmental disabilities.” The organizations, many of whom deal with or represent on a daily basis individuals with mental illness, made the comments in a letter sent to all police chiefs in the state.

In settlement of a suit filed last month by the Rhode Island ACLU against the Division of Motor Vehicles, the DMV has agreed to halt implementation of a policy requiring all people renewing their driver’s licenses to present their Social Security card. The lawsuit, filed in R.I. Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney James Kelleher, had argued that the DMV had no statutory authority to implement the policy and that it violated the due process rights of licensees.

The Rhode Island ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Division of Motor Vehicles, challenging the agency’s recent implementation of a policy requiring all people renewing their driver’s licenses to present their Social Security card. The lawsuit, filed in R.I. Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney James Kelleher, argues that the DMV has no statutory authority to implement the policy and that it violates the due process rights of licensees.

Supporting the public’s right to know, the Rhode Island ACLU has today filed a brief urging the R.I. Supreme Court to reverse the imposition of $15,000 in fines against Attorney General Patrick Lynch for public comments he made during the “lead paint public nuisance” case. The brief argues that the fines violated not only Lynch’s First Amendment right to free speech, but also the public’s right to hear the “views of attorneys concerning pending litigation in which the attorneys are involved.”

In an important victory for the public’s right to know, the R.I. Department of Corrections (DOC) has significantly modified regulations governing media access that it had proposed in September.  At the time, the ACLU had argued that the rules would “allow for a regime of censorship over the news media in their efforts to interview inmates and inform the public.” The revised regulations, being filed with the Secretary of State’s office this week, favorably address virtually every concern that the RI ACLU and others had raised in testimony to the DOC.

The Rhode Island ACLU today sharply criticized state Attorney General Patrick Lynch for urging Congress to pass a law giving telephone companies retroactive immunity for having illegally shared telephone records with the National Security Agency as part of the government’s “war on terror.” The Congressional bill, if passed, would also pre-empt any state investigations of violations of customer’s privacy rights by the companies. This would kill a pending consumer complaint that the local ACLU filed in May 2006 with the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers against Verizon and AT&T.