have the Justice Department digitize and publicly release on the web files on from its Civil Rights Cold Case Initiative

Since 2006, the Justice Department has been re-examining unsolved civil rights cases from the 1950s and 1960s. Over 100 cases were placed in the queue, and Congress passed a law, the Emmett Till Act of 2008, in support of this effort. But dozens of cases have been closed without any additional resolution or prosecution. The files from these cases should be digitized and placed online in full-text searchable format so that outside researchers can explore them. The majority of recent, successful cold case prosecutions resulted from the work of outside investigators, including high school students, who think "outside-the-box" and can approach witnesses with different expectations than professional law enforcement. Let the public have its chance at bringing closure for the victims' families.