Sponsors (4)
The bill significantly expands public access, preservation, and independent review of historical COINTELPRO records—improving transparency and accountability—while imposing substantial administrative costs, creating privacy and safety risks for people named in records, and leaving room for continued secrecy and litigation that could blunt some disclosures.
Researchers, historians, journalists, and the general public gain substantially faster and broader access to COINTELPRO and related historical records because the law sets transmission and public-release timelines (including guaranteed deadlines) and clarifies entitlement to receive covered records.
The creation of an independent Review Board with subpoena powers, public hearings, regular reporting, and published determinations gives the public and Congress a new oversight mechanism to evaluate disclosures and surface historical evidence of civil‑rights abuses.
Victims, next of kin, and individuals named in records receive procedural protections such as advance notification and requirements for segregable summaries or substitute records when full disclosure is postponed, which helps protect privacy and allows preparation.
Federal agencies, NARA, and the Review Board will face substantial administrative, staffing, digitization, storage, and processing costs and workload to locate, prepare, transfer, digitize, and publish large volumes of records, which will likely require reprioritization of resources or additional appropriations.
Individuals named in records (including victims, racial and ethnic minorities, or persons involved in law‑enforcement matters) face real privacy, safety, and reputational risks from disclosure of sensitive personal, grand‑jury, or law‑enforcement material.
Agencies retain statutory means to withhold records for specified harms and executive, judicial, or congressional actors can override the Archivist's refusal to exempt records, creating continued uncertainty, potential political control over disclosures, and the possibility that many records remain secret despite the Act.
Based on analysis of 22 sections of legislative text.
Requires federal disclosure and archival publication of COINTELPRO records, creates a Review Board and a NARA Collection, and renames the building at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Introduced January 22, 2026 by Summer Lee · Last progress January 22, 2026
Requires federal agencies to identify, review, and disclose records tied to COINTELPRO to the public, creates an independent Review Board to adjudicate withheld records, and directs the Archivist to create and maintain a public COINTELPRO Records Collection. It also officially renames the federal building at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW as the “Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Building.” The law sets disclosure timelines, rules for narrow exemptions, reporting and review procedures, and authorization for the Attorney General to unseal certain court-held materials on request of the Review Board.