Panel: Free Press Under Attack - The Fight Over California’s Secret Criminal Cop Records

When two reporters from Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism filed public records requests about criminal cops in January, they didn't expect to get a threatening letter from California's Attorney General. Three weeks after receiving a list of 12,000 names of cops and applicants for police jobs who have been convicted of a crime in the past 10 years, CA Attorney General Xavier Becerra contacted the journalists, telling them to destroy the records and that possessing them is a criminal offense.

The American Constitution Society (ACS) is hosting an all-star panel discussion about the implications of the Attorney General’s letter, and the importance of First Amendment Protections. Panelists include Director of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, John Temple, attorney and Director of the First Amendment Coalition, David Snyder, and civil rights attorney Daniel Sheehan, who worked on historically significant cases including the Pentagon Papers case, the Watergate burglary case, and the Iran-Contra scandal.