News & Commentary

In response to a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, the Division of Motor Vehicles agreed to the entry of a court order today that will require the agency to first adopt regulations through a public process before using a new database designed to identify and possibly take action against uninsured drivers.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island filed a lawsuit today against the Division of Motor Vehicles for implementing a database designed to identify uninsured motorists without first establishing any regulations to prevent the improper disclosure of drivers’ personal information, avoid mistaken registration revocations, or to otherwise ensure that the program is properly administered by the private out-of-state company contracted to run the program.

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.

The state Division of Motor Vehicles is sharing personal information about innocent Rhode Islanders with a growing federal anti-terrorism database, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island charged today. The ACLU has called on the DMV to stop sharing the data and to publicly justify its decision to participate in the first place.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision this morning that police generally must seek a warrant before examining the contents of an arrestee’s cell phone. Two years ago, the RI General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a bill that would have essentially codified the principle the Court enunciated today, but Governor Lincoln Chafee vetoed that legislation in a cursory veto message.

ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement in response to the House of Representatives' approval this afternoon of legislation requiring law enforcement to collect DNA samples from anyone arrested for certain offenses:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has urged the Rhode Island Department of Health to revise proposed regulations that would require physicians to establish written treatment agreements that, among other things, force patients to submit to drug tests on demand in order to receive their pain medication. In written testimony, the ACLU of RI said that these regulations and the department’s model agreement erode patient privacy, undermine the trust that should underlie a doctor-patient relationship, and may encourage individuals with addictions to seek their medication underground.

In a step forward for patients’ privacy rights, the ACLU today announced the favorable settlement of a lawsuit it had filed against the RI Department of Health in 2010, challenging the adequacy of rules the agency had adopted to implement a centralized database of patient health care records. The Health Information Exchange (HIE), authorized by the General Assembly in 2008, allows medical personnel to routinely access a patient’s entire medical file, including mental health records and other sensitive medical information.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has urged the Rhode Island Department of Health (DOH) to reexamine a proposed regulation that would force children out of day care and childcare providers out of work if they are not vaccinated for the flu, even if they are unvaccinated for medical reasons. In testimony submitted to the DOH, the ACLU called the regulation a “serious intrusion on the ability of individuals and families to make their own medical decisions.”