Free Republic

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it." — Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961) Late last week, a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court revealed that he had had enough of the FBI and Congress trashing the Constitution. The normally secretive court and the normally secretive judge explained in a rare public opinion the unlawful behavior of FBI agents spying on ordinary Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The FISA Court judge...

A cop pulls you over for a minor traffic violation. After giving you a warning or a ticket, he says, "Drive safe!" and starts walking away. But he immediately turns around and walks toward your car again, saying, "Hey, can I ask you something?"That maneuver, known as the "Kansas Two-Step," is aimed at evading the Fourth Amendment's constraints on searches and seizures. Police are not supposed to continue detaining you after the ostensible purpose of the stop has been accomplished unless they reasonably suspect you are involved in criminal activity. The two-step is designed to extend the encounter by making...

Attorney General Rob Bonta announced this week that 3 new states would be added to California’s state travel ban list due to recent laws restricting transgender students from participating in school athletics that are not part of their original gender: Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

The Post & Email has received tonight a decclassified FBI report admitted in evidence in the case brought against W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller by President Jimmy Carter’s U.S. Attorney General, Mr. Griffin B. Bell. This document was obtained by an American citizen, who wished to remain anonymous, via a FOIA request. Mr. W. Mark  Felt is none other than the informant who spoke with reporters from the Washington Post, exposing the Watergate Scandal:  who went by the name “Deep Throat” a fact that points to his political neutrality in American politics.What is not know about Mr. Felt...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday refused to reveal if he would support former President Donald Trump as the Republican nominee if the former president is convicted, asserting that he is “just simply not going to comment on the candidates.” CNN’s Manu Raju asked the Senate Minority Leader, “Given that the former president is facing a federal indictment and these serious allegations, could you still support him if he becomes the nominee, even if he’s convicte

Reuters has an interesting piece looking at how many experts are concerned that mass surveillance efforts by the federal government are making a mockery of the 4th Amendment. The focus of the article is on the scan of all Yahoo email that was revealed back in October, but it certainly touches on other programs as well. The concern is easily summarized by Orin Kerr: "A lot of it is unrecognizable from a Fourth Amendment perspective," said Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor and Georgetown University Law School expert on surveillance. "It's not where the traditional Fourth Amendment law is." But,...

Former President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he has been indicted and is scheduled to appear in a federal courthouse in Miami at 3 PM on Tuesday. According to The New York Times, Trump is facing indictment on seven separate charges. The reported charges break down into the following three categories: Withholding of national defense secrets: Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on this charge, which alleges that he intentionally failed to disclose crucial information related to national defense. This charge likely falls under the purview of the Espionage Act, which deals with the protection of classified...

Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is back in the spotlight again after becoming notorious for telling a series of lies when he was running for his seat in 2022. But now, it appears he might be in legal trouble for his questionable behavior.CNN reported:Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against New York Rep. George Santos, the Republican lawmaker whose astonishing pattern of lies and fabrications stunned even hardened politicos, according to three sources familiar with the matter.Santos is expected to appear as soon as Wednesday at federal court in New York’s eastern district, where the charges have been filed under seal.The...

Fresh off a new injection of $45 billion to ramp up its enforcement efforts, the IRS is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to allow its agents to secretly obtain financial records, without ever notifying the account holders. Although the case, which will be argued in March, centers around an arcane statutory dispute, it will have massive implications for the Fourth Amendment rights of taxpayers nationwide. Now a broad coalition from all across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, the Cato Institute, the Center for Taxpayer Rights, the Institute for Justice, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is urging the...

‘Life, Liberty & Levin’ host Mark Levin says nondisclosure agreements are not ‘hush money,’ and says Democrats are setting a ‘dangerous precedent.’

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will use the first State of the State address of her second term to call for policies to reduce gun violence and increase funding for law enforcement, according to excerpts of the speech reviewed by MLive.In the annual address Wednesday, Whitmer will urge the legislature to require universal background checks for all firearms sales and send her legislation mandating safe storage of weapons.

At SHOT Show University, the FBI provided an update on the Nation Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). What they shared was staggering and sure to make the anti-gunners throw up their hands in frustration. For those unfamiliar with NICS, it is a system used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct background checks on individuals who want to purchase firearms from a licensed firearms dealer in the United States. The NICS system was created in response to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which required background checks for all firearms sales made through licensed dealers....

In early September, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon approved Trump’s request for a special master to oversee the review of all the evidence seized in the raid and also temporarily blocked parts of the DOJ investigation pending the appointment of the special master. She ultimately appointed Judge Raymond Dearie as the special master to review the details and legality of the raid on Trump’s private Florida estate. Judge Cannon had ruled against a DOJ request to delay the proceedings and continue to look at the documents separately from the special master. During the raid, passports belonging to former President Trump...

(Text for the vide from this link: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2022/08/05/police-harass-innocent-citizens-on-their-porch-lawsuit-filed-today/ ) Police Harass Innocent Citizens on Their Porch – Lawsuit Filed Today Posted on August 5, 2022 What you’re about to see here is outrageous body cam footage that has never before been seen by anyone, other than law enforcement. It shows what happened to my clients, Jason Tartt, the property owner and landlord, as well as Donnie and Ventriss Hairston, his innocent and mistreated tenants, on August 7, 2020, when they were subjected to civil rights violations by two deputies with the McDowell County Sheriff’s Office, Dalton Martin and Jordan Horn....

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the Department of Justice had “no choice” but to raid former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate to recover classified documents. Guest-host Terry Moran asked, “You mentioned the former President, Donald Trump. Let’s talk about the search of Mar-a-Lago and the legal battle that’s come out. Chris, call on your experience on that. The judge in this case, or in the case that the Trump team brought has appointed a special master to look over all of the material seized out of Mar-a-Lago. The Justice Department is appealing....

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that former President Donald Trump will be indicted for crimes related to the mishandling of classified documents soon. Cohen said, “I do think there’s going to be an indictment and relatively soon. I believe there will also be congressional hearings with Donald in the hot seat where, you know, either he’ll come in willingly, which I don’t think he will or via subpoena. I mean, the real questions that they have to be asking right now is, you know, where are the documents that were in the empty top...

Funny thing: Former President Donald Trump was hoarding classified documents so dear that only cabinet members could read them. We apparently know this because … Department of Justice employees leaked that information to the Washington Post. It’s impossible to take seriously the lecturing on how incredibly dangerous and unprecedented the Mar-a-Lago stash is when its details are given out anonymously to select members of the press. Not that we shouldn’t know what Trump had — to the contrary. Attorney General Merrick Garland should make it clear that he won’t tolerate media leaks, and anyone at Justice or elsewhere in government...

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said Wednesday on FNC’s “America’s Newsroom” that the fact that the FBI found former President Donald Trump’s passports with classified documents during the raid at Mar-a-Lago is evidence that “ties Trump to those documents.”Barr said, “You don’t go into someone’s house and look document by document. You take what you think will be responsive, and then you sort it out through a taint team. No one disputes that goes back, OK? The classified stuff are government documents, and they go to the government. There is no scenario legally under which the president gets to keep...

Joe Biden has made his obsession with President Trump known, most recently through his hellishly lit Mussolini-meltdown speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia last week, manically painting Trump and all his voters as "threats to the republic."He may be doddering and insentient, but he still burns bright against his potential opponent in the 2024 presidential race, which even Democrats don't want him to get involved with. On Trump, Biden's as obsessed with Trump as Stalin was with Trotsky.So it comes to light that not only has Biden tried to smear Trump as a danger to democracy and "threat to the...

September 2nd, 2022 On Friday’s Mark Levin Show, why did former AG Bill Barr stay with the Trump Administration as long as he did if Trump was as bad as he said he was? Barr erroneously assumes that the appointment of a Special Master for the FBI raid is a red herring when the issue at hand is the protection of privilege or one’s fourth amendment right. If privilege simply didn’t matter then it wouldn’t be part of the Presidential Records Act.