A state lawmaker has proposed legislation that would make it illegal for law enforcement in Illinois to run criminal background checks on citizens who speak at public meetings.
The proposal by freshman state Rep. Kambium Buckner follows Chicago Tribune reports disclosing how the Chicago police ran secret background checks for more than a decade on several hundred citizens who signed up to speak at public Police Board meetings.
The revelation drew outrage from current and past Police Board members who said they had no idea that the practice had gone on. In addition, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who once headed the Police Board, ordered an immediate stop to the checks. At Lightfoot’s request, city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office is investigating the origins and scope of the practice.
A day after the Tribune ran its first story about the checks in July, the Police Department issued a rare apology.
Buckner’s legislation would amend the Illinois Open Meetings Act and call for potential felony criminal charges for anyone violating the ban on background checks on speakers at public meetings. It’s likely lawmakers won’t consider the bill until spring.
In a telephone interview, Buckner praised Lightfoot for her swift condemnation of the background checks, but the Chicago Democrat said legislation is still necessary to ensure they’re never done again.
“We want folks to feel like their voice should be heard without having the pressure from being watched under some kind of Orwellian ‘1984’ police state,” he said.
Buckner acknowledged, though, that he had no idea how widespread the practice is.
Asked if he was aware of background checks being conducted for any other public meetings in Illinois, he said, “I don’t know that it doesn’t happen. But I also don’t know that it does happen.”
The proposed legislation might grant exemptions for security reasons but set limits on how long police departments are allowed keep the background information.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has blasted the background checks on Police Board speakers, expects to support Buckner’s proposal, said spokesman Edwin Yohnka.
“It is surprising that we have to pass a law to block someone from being subject to criminal investigation simply because they want to speak to government officials,” Yohnka said. “But we are encouraged that our legislators in Springfield are willing to consider legislation to make explicit that this shouldn’t be permissible for any law enforcement agency anywhere across the state of Illinois.”
A Lightfoot spokesman said her administration would review the potential legislation.
“Mayor Lightfoot has been clear that conducting criminal background checks on public speakers is not only highly inappropriate, but it also negatively affects people’s willingness to come forward and express issues of concern to them,” said the spokesman, Patrick Mullane.
The Tribune first reported in a front-page story in July how the Chicago police compiled profiles of citizens who signed up to address the Police Board by searching at least one internal department database to determine if speakers had arrest or prison records of warrants outstanding for their arrest or were registered sex offenders.
Police even sometimes searched voter registration records, as well as their profiles and comments on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In some cases, the profiles also included photos of speakers, either from various websites or police mug shots.
Those subjected to the background checks included activists, a police union official, relatives of people killed in high-profile police shootings, a woman who told the Police Board she was sexually assaulted by an officer years earlier, a religious leader and attorneys.
Through documents obtained under a public records request, the Tribune learned in July that Chicago police had gathered information since at least January 2018 on nearly 60 people in advance of their speaking at the Police Board meetings. But in September, a broader public records request showed that the practice dated even further back, to at least the summer of 2006.
During the last 13 years, the Police Department conducted criminal background investigations and internet searches on more than 300 citizens who signed up to speak before the Police Board, the records showed.
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