Transparency Watchdog Urges Stewart-Cousins and Heastie to Apply FOIL to Police Disciplinary Records (Repeal §50-a)

S3695/A2513 Will Disclose Police Disciplinary Records
Per the Freedom of Information Law

Reinvent Albany joins numerous civil liberties, police accountability, government watchdog and transparency groups in calling on the State Senate and Assembly to pass S3695 (Bailey)/A2513 (O’Donnell) and immediately repeal §50-a of the Civil Rights Law.

As an advocate for government transparency and accountability, Reinvent Albany has argued that the repeal of §50-a is a fundamentally needed reform for the Freedom of Information Law since 2015. Last year, in our response to the Committee on Open Government’s annual report, we wrote:

We support the Bar Associations, civil rights and criminal justice groups in their efforts to repeal 50-a, which protects police officers’ personnel records, including disciplinary records, from public scrutiny. In short, police officers are granted enormous responsibility and power in our society, and the public must have confidence in and visibility into the disciplinary system to ensure individual officers are not abusing that power.