News & Commentary

More than a dozen local community and civil rights organizations today sharply criticized the recent response of R.I. State Police to allegations that the police engaged in racial profiling and improperly detained and transported to immigration officials fourteen people, all Guatemalans, who were stopped in a van on July 11th after the driver failed to use a turn signal. The groups said the incident demonstrated the urgent need for passage of legislation restricting local police from enforcing federal immigration law.

Following the death this weekend of a Woonsocket resident after being “stunned” with a Taser weapon while in police custody, the Rhode Island ACLU sent a letter today calling on all police departments in the state currently using the controversial weapon to impose a moratorium on their use. R.I. ACLU executive director Steven Brown said that the death of a Rhode Islander after being stunned with the weapon was “inevitable in light of the continually-growing evidence that stun guns are not the non-lethal device that proponents purport it to be.”

Seven organizations that service people with substance abuse problems today sharply criticized as “discriminatory and mean-spirited” regulations approved earlier this week by General Treasurer Paul Tavares, allowing the state to deny compensation to victims of violent crimes based solely on their past drug-related criminal history. The groups further called on the Democratic and Republican candidates for that office, Frank Caprio and Andrew Lyon III, to commit to repealing those regulations if elected. The rule at issue provides that if a crime victim has pled nolo or been convicted of “violent felonious criminal conduct, or DUI/DWI, or the illegal manufacture, sale or delivery of a controlled substance, or possession with intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver a controlled substance … committed within the past five (5) years or subsequent to his or her injury, the administrator may reduce or deny an award to the applicant or applicants.” Drug and DUI convictions are the only non-violent offenses that have been added to trigger a possible denial of victim compensation. The DUI provision was added last year, and the drug offense language was adopted this week after a public hearing held earlier this month.

Responding to a complaint the ACLU of Rhode Island filed last month with the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers regarding allegations that Verizon and AT&T have improperly shared telephone records with the National Security Agency, the two phone companies are claiming that “national security” bars them from addressing the complaint’s allegations and further bars the DPUC from engaging in any investigation of the matter. The ACLU today called the responses “appalling.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today joined a federal lawsuit filed in Philadelphia by the National ACLU to force the Department of Defense to turn over records it wrongly kept on peace groups throughout the country. Along with the National ACLU and five other state affiliates, the ACLU of Rhode Island is seeking to uncover any surveillance documents kept by the Pentagon on local peace groups, as well as on the RI ACLU itself.

In a setback to the religious freedom of institutionalized persons, U.S. District Judge William Smith has ruled that the Department of Corrections could bar an ACI inmate from preaching during Christian religious services at the state prison. The plaintiff, Wesley Spratt, had been preaching at ACI services for seven years before he was unilaterally stopped from doing so based on vague and generalized “security” concerns. In an appeal filed earlier this year, the RI ACLU had argued that the preaching ban violated a federal law designed to protect the religious freedom of the institutionalized. However, in a brief three-page opinion, Judge Smith, while calling the case “somewhat of a close call,” rejected that argument.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today criticized yesterday’s 4-to-2 court of appeals ruling upholding the state’s 2003 raid of the Narragansett Indian smoke shop as “a very troubling undermining of basic principles of Indian sovereignty.” Last September, the RI ACLU, together with the National ACLU and the National Congress of American Indians, had filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case, arguing that “by executing a search warrant against the Tribe, arresting Tribal officials, and confiscating tribal documents and other property,” the state violated the Tribe’s “sovereign authority over its territory.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a complaint with the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, calling for an investigation of recent allegations that Verizon and AT&T have improperly shared telephone records with the National Security Agency. The complaint was one of twenty filed across the country by ACLU affiliates today in response to the burgeoning spy agency scandal.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the community advocacy group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), challenging an East Greenwich Town Council ordinance barring the group from engaging in political door-to-door canvassing between 7 and 9 PM, and requiring payment of a permit fee for the group’s canvassing activities. The lawsuit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Carolyn Mannis, argues that the restrictions violate ACORN’s First Amendment rights.