Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act

The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2017 aims to bring justice to the victims of civil rights cold cases. Written by New Jersey students, this proposed legislation would establish an independent review board to expedite and oversee the release of government documents related to unsolved hate crimes. The bill was recently introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 1272 and has a group of 9 bipartisan co-sponsors from 6 different states. The current system of obtaining documents, (through Freedom of Information Act requests) is slow, leads to significant over-redaction, and makes it difficult for private investigators to solve these cases. Because of sheer size, the Department of Justice and FBI have been unable to dedicate the time necessary to solve decades-old cases that are still in need of resolution. Learn more and learn how you can help our bipartisan efforts by visiting coldcaseact.com