ST. PAUL (MN)
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
December 18, 2017
By David A. Dana And Susan P. Koniak
Our courts and our legislators are guilty. Over the past few weeks, we have seen how our legal system has empowered and encouraged sexual predators to continue abusing women through secret settlements and nondisclosure agreements, despite knowing how dangerous silence can be.
Now is different, we’re told. A “cultural moment.” Laws will be reformed. Courts will change their rules. Lawyers, corporations, the American Bar Association and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation will do a 180 and end their hawking of secrecy.
And pigs will fly.
It has been 15 years since we learned how court-sanctioned secrecy and nondisclosure agreements protected pedophile priests, allowing them to continue abuse that included the rape of children. And our courts and legislatures, with a precious few exceptions, have done nothing to stop the legally sanctioned secrecy that protected those priests from exposure and prevented parents from keeping their children safe.
More recently, the public has turned its outrage to an obscure congressional fund used to secretly settle sexual harassment claims against lawmakers with taxpayer money. If Congress is going to use taxpayer money for these complaints, the public has a right to know.
But Congress is not alone.
Some local and state government agencies also use taxpayer funds to secretly settle in cases of police brutality and other serious wrongs, leaving the public in the dark on the facts.
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