Thursday, March 10, 2005
Senate ready to pass anti-terrorism bill.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Lawmakers say an anti-terrorism bill beefs up the state's ability to respond to terrorism while civil liberties groups worry it goes too far.
The Senate unanimously approved legislation Wednesday that for the first time would allow Ohioans to be arrested for not telling police officers their name, address and age. The bill heads next to the House.
The constitutionality of such laws was upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said people who refuse to give their names to police can be arrested, even if they've done nothing wrong.
Under current law, police could arrest someone if they suspected the person had committed a crime, but they couldn't force the person to identify himself.
Records restrictions
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, would also place new limits on the state open records law by prohibiting public disclosure of assessments of security risks by chemical companies and other "critical infrastructure facilities."
Prosecutors and judges would be required to inform the federal government if a person convicted of a crime is also an illegal alien.
And villages, cities and other municipalities would be banned from passing laws that hinder terrorism investigations. The Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties called the bill an unnecessary expansion of police powers and said it wrongly links terrorism with immigrants.
Senate Democrats dropped opposition because the latest version narrows the list of questions that applicants for certain state licenses must answer regarding potential connections to terrorist groups, including an exception reinstating the application if the person "does not pose a risk to the residents of the state."