Closing the Law Enforcement Consent Loophole Act of 2025

Key Points

• The bill eliminates qualified immunity for law enforcement officers, meaning people can sue officers for violating their civil rights even if no court had previously ruled that specific conduct was illegal. It also lowers the bar for criminal prosecution of officers from "willfully" to "knowingly or recklessly."
• A new National Police Misconduct Registry would track complaints, discipline records, terminations, and lawsuit settlements for all officers nationwide. The public could search it online, and states receiving certain federal grants would be required to report to it.
• The bill bans federal no-knock warrants in drug cases and ties state and local grant funding to banning chokeholds, carotid holds, and no-knock warrants. Federal officers would also face new limits on when they can use deadly or less-lethal force.
• Military-grade equipment transfers to police would be sharply restricted. Firearms, ammunition, grenades, mine-resistant vehicles, drones, combat aircraft, and long-range acoustic devices could no longer be sent to local law enforcement through the Defense Department's 1033 program.
• All federal officers would be required to wear body cameras, and facial recognition technology is banned from being used on any body camera or patrol car footage. Detailed rules cover when cameras must be on, how footage is stored, and when the public can access recordings.
• The bill makes it a federal crime for a law enforcement officer to engage in sexual acts with someone in their custody, with up to 15 years in prison. Consent cannot be used as a defense. States that do not pass similar laws risk losing federal policing grants.