News & Commentary

As part of a new anti-surveillance campaign which is designed to defend consumers’ personal privacy rights, the ACLU is asking Rhode Island-based CVS and 20 other leading retail, banking and travel businesses across the country to take a “no-spy pledge” to reject government requests to voluntarily turn over information on customers and their transactions.

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of a landmark Rhode Island court decision on women’s rights, which held that married women have the legal right to use their birth name on their driver’s license, the ACLU of Rhode Island charged today that the Division of Motor Vehicles continues to provide misinformation to individuals about this basic right.

The Rhode Island ACLU today filed a “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston, challenging District Court Judge Mary Lisi’s sanctions on attorneys in the Cornel Young, Jr. civil rights case for allegedly misrepresenting the judge’s position in court papers. The brief, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Amy R. Tabor, argues that Judge Lisi’s actions “not only violated the due process and First Amendment rights of both the plaintiff and her attorneys, but will, if not reversed, chill and undermine the independent and vigorous advocacy that is an indispensable component of our system of justice.” Last year, the ACLU sought to file a similar brief on these issues before Judge Lisi when she was considering whether to sanction the attorneys, but Judge Lisi denied the ACLU’s request to file the brief.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division against the state for failing to provide appropriate language interpreter services in criminal court proceedings to Limited English Proficient [LEP] persons. While crediting the Rhode Island judiciary and legislature for taking an important step this year by appropriating funds for the hiring of six Spanish-speaking court interpreters, the complaint alleges that LEP criminal defendants continue to lack the services that federal law requires.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed a federal lawsuit against Coventry Fire District Chief Stanley Mruk and District Auditor Conrad Burns, for violating the free speech rights of four Coventry firefighters at the District’s December 2003 annual financial meeting. This is the third time in two years that the ACLU has sued Mruk. The latest suit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Gary Berkowitz, is on behalf of Robert Carlow, James Perry, William Perry, and David Gorman.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced that a settlement had been reached in a federal lawsuit it filed two years ago against the Woonsocket Police Department on behalf of a woman who was strip-searched and left naked in a holding cell for over five hours after being arrested for “driving under the influence.” Under the settlement, the defendants agreed to pay $65,000 to plaintiff Joann Lanoue in exchange for dismissal of the suit. The agreement specifies that it does not constitute any acknowledgement of wrongdoing by Woonsocket police officials.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today entered an appearance in federal court on behalf of Sirak Gebremichael, an Ethiopian immigrant who has been imprisoned for three years by the federal immigration service (“BICE”) solely because he overstayed his visa. The ACLU called Gebremichael’s case the latest example of the federal government’s “low regard” for the rights of immigrants.

The ACLU of RI has called on URI President Robert Carothers to intervene and correct “a very disturbing issue of academic censorship” at the University. It involves Women’s Studies Professor Donna Hughes, an expert on the international trafficking of women and children.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the settlement of a lawsuit it filed against the Tiverton School Committee in 2002, challenging on free speech grounds a policy that barred members of the general public from orally initiating “charges” or “complaints” against school employees during the public comment portion of School Committee meetings. Under the settlement agreement dismissing the suit in light of revisions made to the policy, the school district agreed to pay $7,500 in attorneys fees to the ACLU lawyers in the case.