News & Commentary

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.

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.

Responding to a complaint filed by the Rhode Island ACLU last September, the Rhode Island Department of Education has issued an advisory to all school districts, instructing them to stop using a federally-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum in the public schools that the ACLU argued raised serious privacy and discrimination concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today filed a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of four local peace groups, some of whose lawful activities were monitored by the Pentagon, in order to determine the extent and nature of Pentagon spying in the state. The action is part of a national ACLU effort to uncover details of the Pentagon’s recently-uncovered domestic spying program.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has filed a “friend of the court” brief addressing the issue whether the civil commitment hearing of convicted sex offender Todd McElroy should be public. In this highly publicized case, the Governor and Attorney General took steps to invoke the mental health civil commitment process just weeks before McElroy’s 17-year prison sentence was scheduled to end. The ACLU and a number of medical groups have been very critical of the state’s efforts in that regard.

Newly obtained documents reveal that Rhode Island state officials are concerned that federal legislation called the Real ID Act will require extensive changes to existing practices at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and will carry expenses of more than $20 million that will have to be absorbed by state taxpayers and license applicants. The Act, passed by Congress last spring without public hearings, imposes federal regulations on the design, issuance and management of state driver’s licenses – turning them, for all practical purposes, into a National ID card. RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown today called the information contained in the documents “one of many compelling reasons for Congress to repeal this ill-conceived law.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island charged today that U.S. military officials have illegally engaged in monitoring peaceful protest activities of local anti-war demonstrators, and called for an immediate investigation of the matter. 

The RI ACLU today commended the issuance this week of a state Department of Education advisory to all school district superintendents, reminding them of their obligation to protect the privacy rights of students in interactions with military recruiters. The advisory, issued by DOE Commissioner Peter McWalters, follows a survey the ACLU released in August, showing that many local school districts did not have proper procedures in place to inform parents and students about their legal right to control the release of student information to the military.