California lawmakers want to ban police from covering faces

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Bay Area lawmakers announced legislation on Monday to prohibit law enforcement, at all levels, from covering their faces while conducting operations in the state.

State Senators Scott Wiener and Jesse Arreguin said the bill would also require officers to be identifiable via their uniform or other means.

No Secret Police Act

The senators, from San Francisco and Oakland, respectively, would also require officers to be identifiable via their uniform or other means.

"We do not need secret police in California," Wiener said on Monday at a news conference outside San Francisco City Hall, adding that some law enforcement are "grabbing" people and "throwing them into vans and disappearing them."

Some exceptions to SB 627, or the ‘No Secret Police Act,’ would be SWAT teams and officers who wear medical masks during some sort of natural disaster, like where there is smoke.

Riot gear would still be OK under the bill, because those face shields are see-through.

The bill would make it a misdemeanor to violate the rule, if it becomes law.

Arreguin added that the purpose of this bill is to ensure transparency and accountability for law enforcement, including federal agents.

The bill is also intended to protect law enforcement, the senators said, from people who try to impersonate them.

Police association says ‘ill-conceived’

A day after the proposal was pitched, Brian R. Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, or PORAC, the largest statewide law enforcement association in the nation representing over 83,000 public safety members, said he wished the senators had reached out to him before introducing the "ill-conceived: idea."

"Let me be clear: California’s local law enforcement officers are not ICE," he said in a statement.

Existing state law prevents California police from enforcing federal immigration policies, and state law enforcement's involvement in the activities "have been focused on protecting Californian’s ability to protest peacefully,"  he stated.

"Using local law enforcement as a punching bag to grandstand against the federal government should not be an acceptable practice from our state leaders," Marvel said. "It is misdirected, misguided, and intolerable."

Marvel said this "unnecessary bill" would effectively ban personal protective equipment – like face shields and gas masks—used in high-risk situations such as riots or chemical exposures.

He said that the bill "would force our officers to choose between personal protection and a misdemeanor, risking their safety and our communities’ safety for a law that solves nothing."

California already has oversight measures to ensure that officers can be identified and held responsible for their actions, Marvel said, including language in the state's penal code which requires uniformed officers to wear a badge, nameplate or other device which clearly displays their ID number or name.

Despite what Marvel said about not being contacted, Wiener said he'd be having conversations with local law enforcement about the bill, but he did not elaborate.

Wiener also acknowledged other potential criticism for the bill, which would be that officers could be doxxed.

He said he didn't want that, but he also didn't want California to become a land of anonymous, secret "Storm Trooper" police.

Republican criticism

Several Republicans dissed the idea.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News that the Democratic idea to make ICE agents unmask themselves are the "same people who mandated mask wearing" during COVID.

"It's absurd," he said. "They need to back off of ICE and respect our agents and stop protesting against them," Johnson said. "They're trying to uphold the rule of law, and they don't want to be targeted by Democrat activists. So I'm in favor of whatever protocol."

And then there is the legal question as to whether states can mandate what federal agents do.

Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican San Francisco lawyer who is now a Department of Justice attorney for the Trump administration, wrote on X:  "Scott, go check with a lawyer if this is a thing, and get back to us. (Hint — it isn’t — states can’t regulate what federal law enforcement wears)."

Marvel addressed that as well: "California lacks the authority to regulate federal officers’ attire or operations, a fight better suited for Washington, D.C. where a bill has already been introduced to prevent ICE agents from concealing their identities."

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to include PORAC's statement. 

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