Yesterday, the Legislative
Council of the Maine State Legislature met to review and vote on the 374
bill requests submitted by members of the House and the Senate for
consideration in the second regular session of the 124th Legislature.
Faced with a fiscal crisis, members of legislative
leadership who comprise the Council, have expressed an even greater than normal
desire to ensure this “emergency” session is short and to the point. It
was clear to sponsors that if they expected to get a bill through for full
legislative consideration, they’d better be able to justify why that new law,
amendment or resolve is something that needs to be happen now.
Fortunately,
among those bills approved by the Council are two in particular that ACLU of MAINE will
be working on and watching closely – as should all of you. If passed,
these laws will protect and strengthen the speech and privacy rights of Mainers
and the due process and 8th Amendment rights of Maine inmates.
First, Senator Dennis Damon (of LD 1020, Marriage Equality
fame) is sponsoring LR: 2364 An Act To Regulate the Use of Traffic Surveillance
Cameras, which expands on Representative Rich Cebra’s bill from last session, LD
1234, now Public Law 2009, ch. 223, by further addressing automated law
enforcement surveillance technology which has the potential to seriously infringe on Maine people’s rights of privacy and
freedom of association.
The title was submitted after at least one Maine police department expressed specific
expressed interest in using this technology, which creates the potential for violations
of both the presumption of innocence and our fundamental right to be left
alone. According to ACLU affiliates, in at least one other state,
information about individual whereabouts is gathered and stored for a year or
more without any indication of the subjects’ wrongdoing, and in some elite,
seaside towns, the systems are being proposed for use as a sort of “virtual
gatekeeper.” (click this link
to see some video).
The
ACLU of MAINE also supports Representative Schatz’s introduction of LR: 2289 Resolve,
To Reduce the Use and Abuse of Solitary Confinement. This legislation
acknowledges the serious physical and psychological implications of
segregation, in particular for those with mental illness, and the importance of
due process protections when utilizing such practices with inmates. The initiative
truly emergent – because it deals with such fundamental rights and has such
profound impacts – and because specific concerns have been raised in recent
years and months about the overuse or abuse of this practice at the Maine State
Prison.
Speaking with journalist Lance Tapley of
the Portland Phoenix, who has written extensively about this issue, Seth Berry,
assistant House majority leader explained why he would vote to let the bill
through by acknowledging that “[s]olitary
confinement is very often not just inhumane, but also counterproductive in
achieving its own goals”.
You
can learn more about Rep. Schatz’s bill here.
Stay
tuned for more when the legislature reconvenes in January!