News & Commentary

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Last night, the Public Safety Committee of the Portland City Council rejected most of the proposals before it restricting the constitutional rights of street artists to create and sell works of art in Portland. But, the committee gave its approval to one proposal--requiring artists to register with the city and obtain a special tag. At the ACLU of Maine, we've been outspoken in our defense of street artists for many years. One of the first matters I handled for the organization when I started as a staff attorney here nine years ago was a negotiation with the Portland city attorney over city regulation of political and artistic speech. The ordinances that resulted from those negotiations are very protective of First Amendment rights, but unfortunately, some members of the public, and some members of the City Council, want to undo that good work.  Portland generally takes pride in being an artist-friendly city, and hopefully when these proposals go before the full council, they will all be rejected outright.

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Yesterday, we kicked off our legislative session, testifying in opposition to two bills before the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety. Both bills would create new class D crimes, which carry penalties of up to 364 days behind bars and a $2,000 fine. As a general rule, we oppose the creation of new crimes and the expansion of Maine's penal code. The United States incarcerates 25% of the world's population while having only 4% of the world's general population.  This is attributable to a culture that has emphasized punishment over education and imprisonment over rehabilitation. In that context, we oppose any bills that criminalize new behavior. LD 40 would make it a class D crime to "tamper" with a private memorial erected on a public right-of-way. We were pleased to hear that members of the criminal justice committee shared our concerns about the bill's vague language, which would make it hard for people to know whether or not they are violating the law. We hope that committee members think twice before expanding Maine's criminal code and vote "ought not to pass" on this bill.

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 "The offenses that Swartz was accused of were not motivated by profit, nor did they involve actual hacking.  Federal prosecutors could and should have shown restraint in their case against Swartz and instead focused their limited resources investigating other, more serious computer hacking crimes." Let's help preserve the legacy of Aaron Swartz by reforming the CFAA. SIGN THE PETITION NOW » https://www.aclu.org/secure/ask-congress-to-decriminalize-internet-terms-service

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