Enough Is Enough is going to present on its developing campaign to repeal NY Civil Rights Law 50-a for the Flying Squirrel's March Monday Mayhem! So what the Heck is NY Civil Rights Law 50-a anyway? New York civil rights law section 50-a provides blanket exclusion from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) for ANY police department documents that could potentially be used to evaluate an officer. So how is 50-a affecting FOIL when it comes to the police department? Since the mid-1990s, courts in NY have been expanding the use of 50-a in terrifying ways. At this point, any record that could possibly be used to evaluate the conduct of an officer is now protected from disclosure through FOIL. If citizens complain about an officer or he/she is accused of misconduct, every complaint made (or even just the number of complaints) against that officer is protected from disclosure. If internal affairs conducts an investigation for misconduct, corruption, the use of force, or anything else for that matter, every aspect of that report is protected from disclosure even if the names of the people involved are completely removed! If an officer is caught lying, cheating, or stealing and has disciplinary charges leveled against him/her, all of the findings are exempt from disclosure. Basically, the reasoning is that any police department information that can prove an officer is corrupt can also be used to evaluate that officer's performance, and is therefore protected from ever being disclosed to the public. It's an incredibly serious issue!

[source: Facebook, 2016-Feb-29]