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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

ND Bill Would Hide Oil Pipeline Records, Opponents Say

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Friday, February 15, 2019   

BISMARCK, N.D. – Critics are concerned a measure in the North Dakota Legislature could block attempts to expose abuse of protesters by law enforcement and private companies.

Senate Bill 2209 would bar disclosure of records on security plans for public or private entities, including "critical infrastructure," such as fossil fuel pipeline companies.

Jeffrey Haas, a civil-rights attorney and board member of the Water Protector Legal Collective, says the bill is overly broad and would have made it impossible to uncover the connection between law enforcement and Dakota Access Pipeline builder Energy Transfer Partners.

"They certainly had a lot riding on the pipeline, so we felt like we had a right to know what Energy Transfer Partners' connection was to law enforcement," Hass explains. "This would block us from getting that information, from the security agencies or the corporation doing the pipeline."

Haas says Freedom of Information Act requests were key to exposing abuses against Standing Rock protesters by law enforcement and the company in charge of pipeline security, TigerSwan.

Sponsors of the bill say it's needed to protect places like schools, so that building evacuation procedures aren't open records, for instance.

SB 2209 has passed in the Senate and was introduced in the House this week.

Haas says if security information is kept from the public, it could provide cover for private companies to abuse their roles without North Dakotans knowing. He says this bill is part of a nationwide wave of legislation to impose more penalties on protesters.

"People concerned about the environment, about water, are opposed to that,” says Hass. “So, they're trying to criminalize and sometimes put stigmas of terrorism on people who want to stop this pipeline expansion."

Another bill in the North Dakota Legislature would heighten penalties for protests near so-called "critical infrastructure," like pipelines. According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, 35 states have considered laws to restrict the right to protest since the Standing Rock protests in 2016.


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