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Some of the most concerning civil liberties legislation this year came in the form of legislation dealing with your health, including bills to require that all adult immunization records be automatically included in a DOH database unless the patient opts out.

This legislation, opposed by the ACLU, would allow Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) to attest to a patient’s mental health condition and participate in certifying patients for mandated outpatient treatment, something that only doctors can do presently.

Joined by a number of local and national organizations, the sex worker advocacy group COYOTE-RI today blasted Providence city officials for their arrest last week of three sex workers on charges of soliciting for prostitution at the Foxy Lady adult entertainment establishment. In a statement issued today, the groups called for the charges against the women to be dropped and an end to “the ongoing harassment of sex workers.”

Citing concerns about the potentially devastating impact on veterans wishing to participate in Rhode Island’s medical marijuana program, six state and national advocacy organizations have expressed strong opposition to a Department of Human Services proposal to ban the use of “narcotics prohibited by federal law” – including medical marijuana – at the Veterans’ Home in Bristol. 

Within hours of learning that the ACLU had agreed to represent Newport blogger Christian Winthrop, the Japan-America Society dropped him from a lawsuit it had filed alleging that he had engaged in trademark infringement -- based solely on articles he had posted on his website.  ACLU executive director Steven Brown hailed the Society's about-face, saying that the suit against Winthrop, who runs the Newport Buzz, was “a blatant violation of his First Amendment rights.”  The suit, which remains pending in federal court against some City of Newport officials, has its origins in a dispute between the Society and the City of Newport over the running of the Black Ships Festival, which the City had helped fund in the past. Last month, the Society decided to move the festival to Bristol, and when the City decided to go ahead with its own celebration, the Society demanded that the City stop referring to it as the Black Ships Festival.  In response, the City renamed its competing festival the “Newport-Shimoda Sister City Celebration.” But the Society sued Newport officials for having initially used the term “Black Ships Festival” to refer to its event.