The First Amendment Coalition and 11 journalism and press rights organizations support AB 1388, which will ensure more transparency in policing by prohibiting law enforcement agencies from entering into secrecy pacts with problematic officers. These secrecy pacts, called “clean-record agreements,” are clandestine legal settlements that promise to obscure wrongdoing in exchange for the officer’s guarantee to leave an agency without a fight, an investigation published by the San Francisco Chronicle showed.
The Chronicle’s “Right to Remain Secret” project documented how agreements were used to obscure egregious, and even illegal conduct, including when officers committed sexual assault, embezzled taxpayer dollars, destroyed evidence of sex crimes against minors, and falsified reports.