How the 'Dead Suspect Loophole' Lets Texas Police Hide Records of Jail Deaths and Shootings
A Reason investigation of a notorious Texas public records loophole found 81 cases where police hid records of shootings and deaths in custody.
A Reason investigation of a notorious Texas public records loophole found 81 cases where police hid records of shootings and deaths in custody.
It's up to state lawmakers to defy the will of the unions to change the rules.
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
Alex Villanueva openly wants to get rid of constitutional policing advisors and to conceal names of bad deputies from prosecutors.
It's harder now for law enforcement officials to conceal what happened in deadly encounters with citizens.
The vague wording of Marsy's Laws allows law enforcement to classify themselves as "victims" after shooting suspects.
If the Navy wants people to trust that it's taking steps to be better, less transparency isn't going to help.
Gov. Jerry Brown signs bills dramatically increasing transparency about law enforcement behavior.
State law keeps misconduct secret from the public. That may be about to change.
Thanks to a design bug in a government transparency website, dozens of social security numbers were mistakenly made public.
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
Thanks to California's union-backed secrecy laws, prosecutors and defenders alike don't know about police misconduct.
Publishing readouts of the president's calls with foreign leaders has been a common practice for Republican and Democratic administrations-until now.
Thanks to a new state law, agencies now have to report how extensively civil asset forfeiture is used to take people's stuff.
What happened when Reason sent a 22-year-old non-lawyer to fight for transparency.
Obama's shamefully weak stab at transparency has been abandoned.
Hated by activists, he should have known that he needed to be squeaky clean in his personal and professional life.
Historians will have to wait another three years, and maybe longer, before they can get their hands on the rest of the government's assassination documents.
Unlike everyone else, Scott Pruitt apparently can't get enough email.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The Minnesota Representative took CFPB Director Mike Mulvaney to task for 'frosted' glass office.
Kansas police spend millions in asset forfeiture revenue under vague, lax laws. Now they'll have to open their books.
Law enforcement is already resisting.
Lawmakers have tried to counter the powerful law enforcement lobby and failed.
In a case brought by two Muslim men seeking surveillance records on themselves, the court approves the NYPD's "neither confirm nor deny" response.
A new plan would release footage in cases of officer-involved shootings and use of force.
Judge allows until summer for an unprecedented disclosure of warrant info from one of our most secretive courts.
"This may seem like a great, obvious idea, but no one else has done this."
City officials' excuses are getting more and more ridiculous.
Why should we have to rely on Dem and GOP spin? Americans have every right to know what happened.
"Without this information, we're all left in the dark."
Partisan posturing drowns out important civil liberties concerns.
The surveillance agency's mission statement is updated to reflect reality: It doesn't answer to you.
What trade would that be, exactly?
They voted to expand federal snooping. Now they're outraged about how it's used.
An organization of criminologists say key data missing from the FBI's annual crime report will make it harder to study murders and drug arrests.
One Suffolk County prosecutor, facing criminal charges for covering up the beating of a suspect, received $70,000 in bonuses.
Documents from a $27,000 harassment settlement from Rep. John Conyers' office show how Congress keeps its tax-funded settlements secret.
And he was just awarded the largest penalty in state history for a public records violation.
Is Donald Trump really too weak to do this?
The database cost $25 million.
Activists fear secret surveillance. Push for firmly enforced rules instead of bans.
What will really keep drug (and any other) prices lower? Competition.
A year after law passed exempting footage from public records laws, the inevitable consequences.
Justice Department announces tripling of investigations.
But for the body camera footage…
Lack of due process or transparency keeps father from knowing why it happened or how to fix it.
Do you care about free minds and free markets? Sign up to get the biggest stories from Reason in your inbox every afternoon.
This modal will close in 10