Free Republic

The Institute for Justice says its data show that a century-old Supreme Court doctrine created a huge exception to the Fourth Amendment. Police can traipse onto the vast majority of private property in the country without a warrant thanks to a century-old Supreme Court decision, according to a new study by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public-interest law firm. In a study published in the spring 2024 issue of Regulation, a publication of the Cato Institute, Institute for Justice attorney Josh Windham and research analyst David Warren estimate that at least 96 percent of all private land in the...

Mena ‘doubts the constitutionality’ of his employer, the IRS, using AI to access everybody’s bank accounts nationwide. Mena recalls IRS agents stating “…the first person you shoot you’re gonna remember, but after that you’re gonna shoot like a hundred people, you’re not gonna remember any of them.” He says IRS agents “are assholes...they are the definition of an asshole, all of them.” This video was obtained by an O’Keefe Media citizen journalist who is a part of our American Swiper Program.

First, there were trackers on Taylor Swift and other celebrities’ private jet usage. Now, there will be more scrutiny on executives’ personal use of business aircraft who write it off as a tax expense. IRS leadership said Wednesday that the agency will start conducting dozens of audits on businesses’ private jets and how they are used personally by executives and written off as a tax deduction — as part of the agency’s ongoing mission of going after high-wealth tax cheats who game the tax system at the expense of American taxpayers. The audits will focus on aircraft used by large...

Google's Chrome web browser will soon include a warning that "private" browsing does not prevent users from being tracked, a move that comes months after Google settled a related privacy lawsuit. In December, Google settled a $5 billion privacy lawsuit, which alleged that it spied on people who used Chrome's private browsing — or 'Incognito' — mode. A pre-release version of the browser has been found to include an updated privacy warning that addresses a key piece of evidence in the settled lawsuit — that users "overestimate" the privacy protection features in Chrome. When the change is rolled out, users...

Ninth Circuit panel unanimously orders FBI to destroy records it created during searches of US Private Vaults boxes.. PASADENA, Calif.—This morning, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled against the government in a long-running class action lawsuit from the Institute for Justice (IJ) on behalf of people who rented security deposit boxes at US Private Vaults. The decision slammed the FBI for overstepping its authority when it opened up hundreds of renters’ boxes, conducted criminal searches of them all, and attempted to permanently keep everything in the boxes worth more than $5,000, all without charging any box...

JUST IN - Judge rescinds permission for Trump to give his own closing argument at his NY civil trial — AP

The same intelligence ‘experts’ who penned the Biden laptop letter in October 2020 are now calling on lawmakers to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA.The same intelligence “experts” who penned the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter in October 2020 are now calling on lawmakers to reauthorize the warrantless surveillance state through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On Monday, 46 former national security officials signed a letter urging Capitol Hill to rubber stamp the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The same law was abused by deep-state FBI agents to surveil members of Trump’s campaign. The...

WASHINGTON — Opening statements began Monday in a trial to determine how much Rudy Giuliani will have to pay two former Georgia election workers after he was found liable for defaming them with baseless claims that they committed fraud in the 2020 election. Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, sued Giuliani over the bogus claims, which they say upended their lives. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and former federal prosecutor, was found to have defamed the two women, including by falsely claiming they were handing around what he alleged were USB drives "like they were vials...

Civil rights attorneys argue FBI defied warrant by searching people's safe deposit boxes... FBI agents cataloged Cartier bracelets, Rolex watches and stacks of cash as they combed through safe deposit boxes seized from a Beverly Hills business accused of money laundering. But the owners of many of those boxes were not accused of any crimes. After hearing arguments from both sides Thursday, a panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether the sweeping raid violated customers' Fourth Amendment rights. ... Agents took about $86 million in cash from the boxes, as well as a trove...

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” — William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.Don’t believe it.It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.For instance, it was recently revealed that the...

Former President Trump demanded a jury Monday after his unprecedented time on the stand, calling the civil trial against him and his businesses a "disgrace" and saying New York Attorney General Letitia James has "no case." Trump described his forced testimony as "election interference" while maintaining that his net worth is "far greater" than financial statements during testimony Monday. The former president and 2024 Republican presidential front-runner took the stand Monday morning in the non-jury civil trial stemming from James’ lawsuit against him, his family and his businesses. James alleged Trump defrauded banks and inflated the value of his assets....

Oklahoma state Rep. Justin Humphrey (R-Lane) sent a letter to the Oklahoma Attorney General, the Sheriff of Pushmataha County, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and “All Oklahoma judicial authorities and other law enforcement entities,” requesting an investigation into ATF’s SWAT team raid at the home of his constituent, Russell Fincher. According to a press release, Humphrey said he was contacted by Fincher after a dozen ATF SWAT team members bearing “automatic weapons” raided Fincher’s home, handcuffed him on his porch in front of his 13-year-old son and coerced him into relinquishing his Federal Firearm License. “If this report is true, and...

Sometime in the next three weeks, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to ask a grand jury to indict multiple people for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result. July 31 is the first of 10 days between now and August 18 that Willis has instructed most of her staff to work remotely, citing safety precautions.That window comes as U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is preparing to bring criminal charges stemming from his federal investigation into the Jan, 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Willis says the two investigations have not coordinated.“I don’t know...

Following an at times confounding series of events on Monday, a grand jury in Fulton County voted to indict former President Donald Trump on more than one dozen counts for his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Just before 9:00 p.m. ET, the grand jury's decision was returned to Judge Robert McBurney and then handed off to the clerk to be docketed before being unsealed and made public shortly before 11:00 pm. In all, the grand jury handed up a 98-page indictment against Trump as well as a handful of his allies including Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Kenneth...

ATLANTA (AP) — A list of criminal charges in Georgia against former President Donald Trump briefly appeared Monday on a Fulton County website, but prosecutors said Trump had not been indicted in a long-running investigation of the 2020 presidential election. A Fulton County grand jury began hearing from witnesses Monday. Shortly after 12 p.m., Reuters reported on a list of several criminal charges to be brought against Trump, including state racketeering counts, conspiracy to commit false statements, and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said the filing was...

grand jury is set to consider whether to indict 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in connection with alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. If indicted, this would be his fourth this year. Lawyers who have followed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation, including some who have worked with her in the past, expect her to invoke Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, which is modeled after the federal act of the same name, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Signs are certainly pointing in that direction,” said law professor at Georgia...

This is not the presidential portrait he wanted. A sheriff in Georgia said former President Donald Trump will likely have his mug shot taken if he is hit with a fourth indictment in that state. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat anticipates authorities will adhere to “normal practices” if Trump receives an indictment for attempting to challenge the 2020 election results in the Peach State. “Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices, and so it doesn’t matter your status,” Labat told reporters during a press conference Tuesday. “We’ll have a mug shot ready for you.”

"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 liberal college town in Idaho is paying $300,000 to three Christian churchgoers who sued the city after being arrested for not wearing masks at an outside service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The city of Moscow announced this week that it would settle with Gabriel Rench, as well as Sean and Rachel Bohnet, who brought a case against city leaders in March 2021 that alleged their rights under the First and Fourth Amendments were violated when they were arrested at an outdoor "psalm sing" conducted by leaders from their church. Moscow, home to the University of Idaho,...

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