Free Republic

We all get to vote, but the ability to make legislation is no longer in the hands of the people we elect,’ Columbia law professor Philip Hamburger said. As the administrative state implements more regulations on Americans, a team of legal veterans has come together to fight the expansion of unelected government agency power. Sometimes, they even win. The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which consists of a team of 27 lawyers and support staff, including former judges, had four of the cases they litigated go before the Supreme Court in 2023. One case was decided in their favor, the...

Today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance launched a Complaint against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) challenging the agency’s unconstitutional “Consolidated Audit Trail.” The CAT is the largest government-mandated mass collection of personal financial data in American history. Without any statutory authority, SEC is forcing brokers, exchanges, clearing agencies and alternative trading systems to capture and send detailed information on every investor’s trades in U.S. markets to a centralized database, which SEC and private regulators can access forever. NCLA is asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to stop this unlawful, unprecedented seizure and mass surveillance...

A ruling handed down on September 13th by the D.C. District Federal Court has finally made clear what many have known for years–that the Obama Administration’s Iran policy was initiated and advanced by a group with illicit, hidden ties to the Iranian Regime and financed by the U.S./Israel- hating George Soros. In 2009, Barack Obama turned over virtually all responsibility and authority for foreign policy negotiations with Iran to Trita Parsi and his National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Founded by Parsi in 2003, the Washington-based NIAC is a powerful lobbying group that is “…widely considered the de facto lobby for...

The exchange below, between Representative Trent Franks and Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, occurred in late July, but is particularly relevant today. Representatvie Franks tries to extract an assurance from Perez that the Obama administration will not push a proposal to criminalize speech “against any religion.” He has a tough time doing so.

We didn't need another report to tell us that there was negligence and mismanagement in the federal government's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but we got it anyway. We didn't need a video showing us that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and President Bush had been briefed ahead of time about the eminent threat Katrina posed to New Orleans - it was obvious from the start. What we had not seen until now is to what extent Latinos were unfairly treated before and after the devastating hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. It took an organization like the National...