News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island is offering to the public a free 36-page booklet entitled “Your Rights to Workplace Privacy in Rhode Island.” As its title indicates, the booklet answers commonly-asked questions about employees’ privacy rights in the state.

RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown issued the following statement today in response to news reports that Providence police have used special infra-red technology to determine whether people have been sleeping overnight inside the tents in Burnside Park where the “Occupy Providence” protest is taking place:

The RI ACLU testified yesterday against proposed state Board of Elections' regulations that would bar voters from wearing political buttons or clothing with political messages into polling places.  The ACLU's testimony argued that in addition to raising First Amendment concerns, such a restriction was inconsistent with state law provisions defining improper "electioneering."

Claiming that it violates the Department of Justice’s own standards, the RI ACLU and four other organizations have asked the United States Solicitor General to “halt any further efforts” by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Rhode Island to seek to impose the death penalty on Jason Wayne Pleau. The letter follows actions by that office to appeal a federal court ruling two weeks ago that Governor Lincoln Chafee acted lawfully in refusing to transfer Pleau’s custody to the federal government, which is seeking to prosecute him even though he has already agreed to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The Rhode Island ACLU announced today that the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) is withdrawing recently-proposed and controversial regulations, relating to public access to police records, which the ACLU sued over last month.  RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown called the withdrawal of the regulations “an important, if temporary, victory for the public’s right to know.”  The ACLU’s suit argued that the agency failed to provide the public an appropriate opportunity to comment on the open records regulations.

At a public hearing last night, the Rhode Island ACLU called on the state Reapportionment Commission address the critical problem of prison gerrymandering when drawing legislative district lines. Prison gerrymandering refers to the practice of counting all inmates at a prison as living there for purposes of redistricting. The impact of skewing districts this way is that the voting strength of the communities from which the inmates come is diluted, while the political influence of the city residents in which the prison is located is inflated.

The RI ACLU has today filed a lawsuit challenging the Division of Motor Vehicle’s actions in refusing to reinstate a person’s driver’s license based on a “policy” that appears nowhere in the agency’s rules and regulations. The lawsuit, filed in R.I. Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorneys Albin Moser and Melissa Braatz on behalf of Warwick resident Marc Lavik, argues that the DMV’s actions are in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), an important state law that requires agencies to provide advance notice and a public comment period before adopting policies that affect members of the public.

Claiming that the RI Vehicle Value Commission “has taken the easy way out, adopting a formula that is as simple to administer as it is unfair to motor vehicle owners,” the RI ACLU has submitted written testimony to the Commission, in advance of a public hearing scheduled for later this month, calling on the agency to adopt a fairer methodology for establishing the “presumptive value” by which cars are assessed for tax purposes. The assessment process has taken on particular significance in light of a recent state law change that has substantially increased both the size of the car tax that can be imposed and the number of previously-exempt cars that are now subject to the tax.