News & Commentary

By Megan Khatchadourian, Assistant to the Executive Director

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today called on Cranston Mayor Allan Fung to promptly release the full, unredacted report on the State Police investigation into the Cranston Police Department, noting that Mayor Fung’s stated plan to consult the Attorney General about what information would be appropriate to release under the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA) was “unnecessary and unwarranted,” and would likely significantly delay access to the critical report.

Late last Friday, the Attorney General’s office issued opinions on ACCESS/RI complaints against 14 state and municipal agencies for violating the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA), finding that 12 of the 14 agencies had violated the law. Of those 12 agencies, 10 were deemed to have committed more than one APRA violation. “We are pleased the Attorney General agreed with us in the majority of our complaints,” says Linda Lotridge Levin, President of ACCESS/RI. She continued, “It is worth noting that these complaints represent just a sampling of the dozens of violations discovered during our 2014 audit of 39 cities and towns and 24 state agencies.”

By Philip Eil, journalist and RI ACLU plaintiff

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has requested the “gag order” issued for the settlement discussions in the pension case be lifted now that plaintiffs are voting on a possible settlement agreement. In a letter delivered Friday to R.I. Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter, the ACLU said that since the “broadly written” gag order was issued to protect the confidentiality of the mediation process, it is “counter-productive and unduly intrusive on basic First Amendment values to allow it to remain in effect” now that that task is completed. In the letter, ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown noted that, as plaintiffs began an expedited process of considering and voting on a settlement agreement, various explanations of the agreement have circulated with no public details coming from those who know what it contains.

The ACLU of Rhode Island filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today on behalf of local journalist, Philip Eil, who has been stymied for more than three years in his effort to obtain access to thousands of pages of public evidence from a major prescription drug-dealing trial. The lawsuit, against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), seeks a court order to release the documents, a declaration that the DEA has wrongfully withheld and redacted documents, and an award of attorney fees. Filing the suit were ACLU volunteer attorneys Neal McNamara and Jessica Jewell, from the law firm of Nixon Peabody.

The ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement in response to news reports today that RIPTA has refused to provide any information about its use of security cameras to monitor Kennedy Plaza.

ACCESS/RI, of which the ACLU of Rhode Island is an active member, has filed 14 complaints citing a total of 53 violations of the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA) with the Rhode Island attorney general. The complaints stem from an audit released in September to determine whether state and municipal agencies were in compliance with amendments enacted by the General Assembly in 2012 to strengthen APRA.

The ACLU of Rhode Island Tuesday commended the federal judiciary for promoting greater transparency in court proceedings by allowing court spectators to take notes without having to obtain prior approval. The long-standing requirement of advance judicial approval was eliminated in revised local federal court rules that are scheduled to take effect on December 15th. Instead, members of the public will be able to routinely take notes as long as they are not disruptive.