Virginia Senate Passes Bill That Will Effectively Turns Cops Into Secret Police
By Clarice Palmer
ActivistPost.com
FEBRUARY 26, 2016
In the United States, the Fourth Estate, also known as the Fourth Power or the fourth branch of government, has always been a popular label for the media’s role in a free society. But in the state of Virginia, legislators want to remove that power from the press by shielding police officers from public scrutiny.
Senate Bill 552, which has already been approved by the Senate, hopes to classify the names of all local police officers and fire marshals as “personnel records,” shielding these individuals from the responsibility of dealing with public backlash in the case that something goes awry.
The bill, the Washington Post reports, was proposed as a response to an incident involving the the press, and the names of police officers considered too problematic to stay in their positions:
It started with a reporter’s attempt to learn whether problem police officers were moving from department to department. It resulted in legislation that is again bringing national scrutiny to the Virginia General Assembly: a bill that could keep all Virginia police officers’ names secret.
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