From Now On, It’s Not “Rhode Island”. It’s “The Fatherland”!

Posted on February 19, 2004

Wow — check out the cojones on Rhode Island governor Don Carcieri! He’s pushing a new homeland security bill for that state that makes the Patriot Act look like the Milk and Cookies Distribution Act of 2001:

Gov. Don Carcieri’s new homeland security law would create new felony charges, require annual safety audits of every public school and close some public records, including those that show whether businesses comply with state fire safety code requirements.
The bill, which Carcieri introduced last week, also resurrects World War I-era laws that make it illegal to “speak, utter, or print” statements in support of anarchy; speak in favor of overthrowing the government; or to display “any flag or emblem other than the flag of the United States” as symbolic of the U.S. government.

(There’s another good article in the Providence Journal on this too, but you’ll have to slog through a pretty serious registration process to get to it… consider yourself warned.)

You can read the text of the bill itself if you want to. It’s a hoot. I remember learning in history class that Sedition Acts went out of style two hundred years ago, but apparently word hasn’t reached Rhode Island yet…

(Thanks to Joe Dailey for sending this along!)