Free Republic

Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) acted to fulfill 46 search and seizure warrants and one arrest warrant on Monday against people suspected of financing the January 8, 2023, Brasilia riot. That day, thousands of supporters of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro flocked to the heart of Brasilia – home to the nation’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential office – to protest against the election of socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula defeated Bolsonaro and began his third presidential term on January 1, 2023. The protest turned into a riot after the protesters stormed the premises of Brazil’s Congress, Supreme...

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. - A Florida man was arrested Tuesday after deputies found 88 grams of cocaine, $4,069 in cash, and a false ID. Omar A. Feliciano, 42, is facing a slew of charges including; possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, possession of fraudulent Puerto Rican ID, the armed trafficking of cocaine, and Resisting arrest without violence. While on patrol in Osteen, Volusia County deputies were able to recover a false ID, $4,069 in cash, and 88 grams of cocaine. Feliciano also has two felony warrants in Orange and Seminole counties. The 42-year-old is now in Volusia County Jail,...

NAPLES, Fla. — A Bradenton man with a violent history has been arrested after it was revealed he has 21 outstanding warrants in three Florida counties. Around 1:30 p.m. on February 2nd, Florida Highway Patrol Troopers initiated a traffic stop on a Nissan. The vehicle was pulled over on I-75 near Mile Marker 98 in Collier County. According to the arrest report, Troopers found 1,500 tablets of Alprazolam, sold under the brand name Xanax, and two grams of marijuana. The driver of the vehicle, 29-year-old Yasmin Nicole Forester, was arrested and faces three possession charges. The vehicle’s passenger initially gave...

An intelligence analyst behind the FBI’s botched Trump-Russia collusion probe is now accused of using the bureau’s authority to discredit reports about Hunter Biden’s criminal activity months before the 2020 presidential election. Meet Brian Auten. The FBI analyst is hardly a household name, but whistleblowers who contacted the office of GOP senator Chuck Grassley say he was behind an August 2020 report that FBI officials used as part of a "scheme…to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation."

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) disclosed to a congressional office that migrants flying without proper identification can use an arrest warrant as an alternate form of identification when presenting to airport security, according to a letter the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively obtained. Responding to Republican Texas Rep. Lance Gooden’s Dec. 15 inquiry about migrants flying across the country, TSA Administrator David Pekoske explained that certain Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents may be considered acceptable forms of alternate identification for non-citizens, including a “Warrant for Arrest of Alien” and a “Warrant of Removal/Deportation.” “TSA’s response confirms the Biden Administration...

The Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has signed arrest warrants for the 52 Democrat fugitives who neglected their duty and escaped maskless on a private plan to Washington, DC, to prevent the passage of election integrity legislation. “The House voted 80-12 Tuesday to force the fugitives to return, just hours after the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the House to order them back to the chamber to secure a quorum,” Dallas News reported Wednesday. “The warrants will be delivered to the House sergeant-at-arms on Wednesday morning, according to Phelan spokesman Enrique Marquez.” “At least two dozen House Democrats...

Arlington, Va. – Today, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) endorsed bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Ron Wyden, Rand Paul, Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee aimed at ending the legal loopholes that allow for warrantless surveillance on Americans. The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act closes major loopholes in federal privacy law and ensures the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which regulates law enforcement access to Americans’ information, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which regulates intelligence agencies, are the exclusive means by which the government can surveil Americans. AFP Senior Policy Analyst Jeremiah Mosteller issued the following statement: “We can keep...

Constitutional amendment overwhelmingly passes.Michigan voters Tuesday night had a message for police: Get a warrant. Yes, for their phones, too. Voters overwhelmingly approved Michigan Proposal 2. The referendum, put to the ballot by lawmakers, amends the state constitution to add "electronic data and electronic communications" to the state's search and seizure laws. With 88 percent of the vote counted, Michigan voters approved the protections. The measure passed with 88 percent of the vote, more than 3.8 million votes of support. The relevant part of the state's constitution will now read: The person, houses, papers, possessions, and electronic data and electronic...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- When they approve search warrants, giving police authority to enter private homes, Louisville judges often don't bother to sign their names in a way that they can be identified, and there is no other public record showing which judge approved a given warrant. That was the conclusion of a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting-WDRB News investigation published Sept. 16. "When a police officer comes to your house with a warrant, you should be able to ask to see that warrant and see which judge said that this is OK," reporter Jacob Ryan of the Kentucky Center...

<p>COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - The South Carolina Supreme Court has temporarily ordered judges to stop issuing “no-knock” search warrants.</p> <p>The announcement, signed by Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty on Friday, said circuit and summary judges cannot sign off on the warrants until they receive further instruction from the state’s judicial branch on how to issue the warrants.</p>

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - Hunter S. Thompson's body was found in a chair in the kitchen in front of his typewriter with the word "counselor" typed in the center of the page, according to sheriff's reports. The word was typed on stationery from the Fourth Amendment Foundation, which was started to defend victims of unwarranted search and seizure, according to reports released Tuesday. It was not immediately known what, if any, significance the word had to the founder of "gonzo" journalism or to his family. Juan Thompson found his father dead Feb. 20 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the...

A British court decision unmasks new evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion probe. It was in London that the whole Russia collusion caper began four years ago, so it seems only fitting that as the discredited probe enters its final phase that damning new evidence of the FBI’s failures would emerge back in England. This week when a British judge ruled against the former FBI human source Christopher Steele, the decision delivered more than an order for the former spy’s company to pay damages to two Russian businessmen maligned by his dossier. It also introduced new incontrovertible evidence...

The language of the Fourth Amendment strongly suggests that warrants are required for searches, and the Supreme Court has permitted only narrow exceptions to the warrant requirement.Last week, The New York Times reported on a facial recognition technology company offering law enforcement, federal government agencies, and companies the ability to identify people simply by uploading a photograph. Clearview AI has compiled more than three billion images by scanning Facebook and other platforms. It analyzes uploaded facial images and returns public photos that match the photo subject, along with links to where those photos appeared. Clearview’s service, says the Times, “could...

diGenova said Inspector General Michael Horowitz has determined all four FISA warrants against one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page were illegally obtained. ... DiGenova said if he were attorney general, any officials involved in obtaining the Page FISA warrants who are still in the department would be "gone." He singled out Dana Boente, who is the general counsel now under FBI Director Christopher Wray. The April 2017 FISA renewal was approved by Boente and former FBI Director James Comey, ... DiGenova also discussed the two people he wants to hear from after the FISA report is released. He said he...

cryptic – exchanges occurred when Rep. Jim Jordan fired off a series of heated questions about .. a Maltese professor invariably described as “mysterious,” Joseph Mifsud. Jordan began: The “FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on February 10th, 2017. In that interview, Mr. Mifsud lied. You point this out on page 193, Volume I. Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn't charge him with a crime. Why not?” Mueller was still looking for the page in his binder: “Did you say -- I'm sorry, did you say 193?” “Volume I, 193,” Jordan repeated impatiently. “He [Mifsud] lied three times,...

Violent clashes between police and protesters broke out in the streets of a working-class Memphis neighborhood after a 20-year-old black man was shot dead by U.S. Marshals during an attempted arrest in his family's front yard. The violent clashes broke out after Brandon Webber was shot and killed by officers on Wednesday night as they tried to arrest him for outstanding felony warrants outside his home in Frayser in North Memphis. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations said officers went to the home at about 7pm to look for Webber who had outstanding felony warrants.

UPDATE: On Friday afternoon, the Washington Supreme Court issued an order that amended the lead opinion by striking out its conclusion and replacing it with the following: “ “We in the lead opinion would hold the city presented insufficient evidence to sustain [Solomon] McLemore’s conviction and remand to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. However, we recognize this opinion has garnered only four signatures. ‘Therefore, there being no majority for the reversal of the judgment of the trial court, it necessarily stands affirmed, and the order of this court is that the judgment appealed from be...

A divided Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Lawrence Hubbard’s misdemeanor convictions in a case demonstrating police officers relying exclusively on olfactory skills to detect raw marijuana can supply probable cause to support search of a residence. The decision by the high court extended to a private residence the accepted principle in Kansas that a trained and experienced officer’s detection of the aroma of marijuana could justify the legal search of a vehicle. The ruling also resolved conflicting Kansas Court of Appeals decisions. Supreme Court justices, on a 4-3 vote, rejected arguments put forth by Hubbard’s attorney, including questions about whether Lawrence...

Devin Nunes knows a lot more than the average person in Congress when it comes to the Russia investigation. He is an ally of Trump and he has been pushing for Trump to declassify documents related to the FISA warrants that led to investigations of the dossier and Russia. Nunes is now warning Democrats and the media that they won’t like what they see. From the Daily Caller: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said this week that Democrats and the media are likely to be “frightened” by the information contained in Trump-Russia documents that Republicans are asking President Trump...

FBI had actually paid Christopher Steele, the man who put together the infamous unverified dossier targeting President Donald Trump during the campaign, in 11 separate cash payments in 2016. This was despite being admonished in February 2016 and despite the fact that he was being paid with money from the Democrats that went through the law firm Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS to Steele for opposition research to gather against Trump... FBI was using taxpayer dollars to pay for opposition research and unverified smears on Trump. In the words of FBI official Peter Strzok, sounds like an “insurance policy.” ......