News & Commentary

ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement in response to the request from the “President’s Commission on Election Integrity” for detailed information from the Secretary of State about every voter: "The ACLU of Rhode Island is deeply concerned about the Presidential Commission’s request for detailed information on every registered voter in the country. There can be little question that this Commission has a preordained agenda aimed at promoting voter suppression. "Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea has pledged that she will not release to the Commission any information beyond what is already available to the public under Rhode Island law. We are confident that she will safeguard from disclosure any other personal information of the state’s voters that the Commission has requested. We will be prepared to assist in challenging any Commission efforts to obtain that additional information."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today announced the settlement of a federal lawsuit against Tiverton police and school officials over a 2014 incident in which an 8-year-old girl was removed by police from a school bus, taken alone to the police station without her parents’ knowledge, and then held and questioned at the station for several hours before being released. The seizure, detention and interrogation of the young child were based solely on unsubstantiated claims from another child that the girl was carrying “chemicals” in her backpack, and occurred even after the police found nothing in the backpack.

Raising alarm about the lack of privacy for students and their families, the ACLU of Rhode Island today released a report showing that many school districts in the state give themselves the right to remotely spy on students through the use of school-loaned laptop computers. Under so-called “1 to 1” programs, in which a majority of school districts in the state participate, a private vendor provides free laptops or tablet computers for the school year that students can use at home. With this program, however, the ACLU found, students and their families are often required to surrender basic privacy rights.

As the federal agency tasked with auditing and evaluation of Congressional programs, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) doesn’t like to make mistakes. The “congressional watchdog,” the GAO’s mission is to provide Congress “timely information that is objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, nonideological, fair, and balanced” in order to help Congress fulfill their Constitutional responsibilities. Legislation may be crafted and changed based solely on what the GAO includes in their findings, and the GAO’s legitimacy depends heavily on the infallibility of their reports.

In the almost 15 years since 9/11, we as Americans are all too familiar with knee-jerk reactions that blossom into policies and laws that seek to “protect” us while trampling on our rights -- all in the name of security.  Case in point, the Patriot Act.  After all of these years, this Act has done more in the way of eroding our rights in the name of security than one can count – and once again, Congress is looking to make it even worse.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today celebrated the signing by Governor Gina Raimondo of crucial privacy legislation requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing cell phone location information, except in certain emergency circumstances.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has raised concerns about apparent plans by the RI DMV to routinely share driver license photos with the FBI.  In a letter to the DMV, the ACLU has called on the agency to release information about its negotiations with the FBI in order to allow public input before an agreement is entered into that could seriously invade residents’ privacy rights.

When the sun rose and the gavel came down at 6am on Saturday morning, June 18th, the ACLU of Rhode Island was still at the State House, monitoring important civil liberties legislation until the very last moments of the session. We will provide a more detailed review of the legislative session, along with a 2015-2016 voting scorecard, in our next newsletter (look for it in August), and you can check out an expanded list of some of the legislation we monitored last year here. For now, here are some of the highlights - and the lows - of the 2016 General Assembly session.