Free Republic

The FBI cannot seem to stop trampling American citizens' constitutional rights. But some victims of government abuse have fought back. And their tenacity has left the bureau scrambling to save face. According to Rob Johnson, senior attorney at the nonprofit Institute for Justice, a landmark Fourth Amendment case pending in California might soon result in severe chastisement for the tyrannical FBI. In 2021, the bureau raided U.S. Private Vaults, a safety storage company based in Beverly Hills, California, on suspicion of money laundering -- a charge to which the company later pleaded guilty. While conducting their raid, however, FBI agents...

Injunction lays out the path for getting class-action certification for safe deposit box renters, lawyers say. The feds faced another setback in their quest to keep $85 million in assets seized in a raid without charging hundreds of safe deposit box renters with a crime. U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner issued a preliminary injunction July 16 in a lawsuit by several customers of Los Angeles-based U.S. Private Vaults (USPV), who alleged the FBI denied them due process by providing civil forfeiture notices that lacked "any legal basis" for seizing the contents of each box. The feds indicted USPV for...

A state agency that lost its bid to seize the home of piano tuner Charlie Birnbaum in state Superior Court last month plans to continue its lengthy legal battle to acquire the Oriental Avenue property.The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, or CRDA, on Wednesday filed a notice appealing the Aug. 5 decision from Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez, who wrote the state agency's effort to condemn Birnbaum's property is a "manifest abuse of the eminent domain power." The agency has targeted the brick walkup that has been in Birnbaum's family for more than four decades as part of a mixed-use development project in...

National City, Calif.—A San Diego-area boxing gym that serves at-risk kids is showing what it takes to fight for what is right and to win.  A trial is scheduled to begin on Monday, March 14, 2011, to decide whether National City, Calif., may declare nearly 700 properties—including the gym—“blighted,” thus freeing the city to bulldoze these properties and make way for luxury condos among other private developments.  The trial will be held before the Honorable Steven R. Denton, Superior Court of California, Hall of Justice, 330 W. Broadway in San Diego, Calif. The Community Youth Athletic Center (CYAC) has had...