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The RI state police want expanded powers with proposed new legislation before the RI House and Senate that would let them obtain resident's phone and Internet records without court review, as reported today. The bills would let the state police, along with the chief of police of a city or town and the attorney general to issue "administrative subpoenas" that would compel communication companies to hand over records. Knowing how lazy, incompetent and/or corrupt many local police departments are here, giving them this kind of unchecked power is frightening and gives me the willies.
They tried passing a similar bill last year and it caused such an uproar that it died. But they're back. It shows that they will not give up until our rights are thoroughly degraded.
Obviously the state police got the the idea and encouragement from seeing what has been accomplished at the Federal level. You could say this is a novel form of "trickle down."
