Despite the very difficult session for civil liberties as chronicled in the previous pages, it is worth noting that the Affiliate had many successes in keeping damaging legislation from ever reaching the floor. In that regard, listed below are some bills of civil liberties importance, reviewed in prior newsletters, which were opposed by the ACLU and ultimately did not make it out of committee this session:
- A Family Court bill that would have generally barred local juvenile hearing boards from dealing with first-time offenders charged with drug or alcohol offenses, and instead required referral of such cases to court.
- A troubling State Police proposal to give law enforcement agencies broad authority to secretly obtain, without a warrant, subscriber information from Internet service providers.
- A bill to require the presentation of photo identification at the polls in order to vote.
- Legislation providing for the collection and storage of DNA samples from any person arrested for a felony of any kind.
- An Attorney General bill that would have written into Rhode Island law a vague federal statute, making it a felony for a public employee to “engage in any conduct that deprives the public of the intangible right of his or her honest services.”
- A bill authorizing police officers to stop and ticket persons for smoking in their car if a child required to be in a car seat was in the vehicle.
- A bill making it a crime for school employees to bring any “obscene” materials – from books to sex toys – onto school grounds.
