S. 1510 — Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Reauthorization Act

This section amends the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018 (Act)—which established a Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board to identify, collect, and publicly release federal, state, and local records related to unsolved criminal civil rights cases (generally, violent acts from 1940–1980 targeting individuals for exercising civil rights)—as follows: (1) expresses the sense of Congress that such records carry a presumption of immediate disclosure and should eventually be disclosed to inform the public about the cases' history; (2) authorizes the Review Board, upon request, to reimburse state or local governments in full for expenses incurred in digitizing, photocopying, or mailing civil rights cold case records for transmission to the National Archives; (3) requires state and local governments to transmit such records in their possession to the collection (by striking a prior exception); and (4) excludes civil rights cold case records created on or before January 1, 1990, from application of FOIA exemption (b)(6) (i.e., records whose disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy).

This section extends the tenure of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board to 11 years (from 7 years). (As background, the board, established by the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018, reviews federal records related to unsolved civil rights cold cases—i.e., violent crimes prosecuted or investigated as of 2018 that occurred between 1940 and 1979—and recommends their declassification for public release to the National Archives.)