An appeal filed with the Michigan Supreme Court says the government must get a warrant before it can surveil private property for evidence.
The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, says the government violated the Fourth Amendment when it used warrantless drone surveillance to snap pictures of Todd Maxon’s 5-acre property in Long Lake Township where he repairs cars, as proof of zoning violations.
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Attorneys for former President Trump and the Justice Department are scheduled to meet Tuesday in New York with the court-appointed special master who is reviewing the documents seized by the FBI during the bureau’s raid of Mar-a-Lago last month.
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Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said that the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida estate was incorrectly conducted.
Earlier in August, FBI agents with the Washington Field Office raided the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home seeking classified documents he may have removed from the White House. Reports subsequently emerged that Trump had already been served with a subpoena seeking classified records related to the investigation and had cooperated extensively with federal authorities.
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When it comes to the National Archives, history has a funny way of repeating itself. And legal experts say a decade-old case over audio tapes that Bill Clinton once kept in his sock drawer may have significant impact over the FBI search of Melania Trump’s closet and Donald Trump’s personal office.
The case in question is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration and it involved an effort by the conservative watchdog to compel the Archives to forcibly seize hours of audio recordings that Clinton made during his presidency with historian Taylor Branch.
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In an acknowledgment the FBI over-collected evidence during the Mar-a-Lago raid, the Justice Department informed Donald Trump’s team Monday that agents seized the former president’s passports and are obligated to return them, Just the News has learned,
DOJ was making plans Monday evening to return the passports and have also alerted defense lawyers the FBI may have obtained materials covered by various privileges that will be returned in the next two weeks, two sources told Just the News.
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In 2021, law enforcement in Tennessee seized $16 million worth of cash and $15.8 million was forfeited in court. But according to annual reports from Tennessee’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security, departments used just $195,000 of those funds.
Each year since Tennessee law began requiring those disclosures in 2018, similar numbers have appeared.
In 2020, $15 million was seized, $8.4 million was forfeited in the courts but just $1,980 was recorded as being used. In 2019, $12 million was seized, $12 million was forfeited and just more than $300,000 of the proceeds were used.
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Michigan voters will see a question on the Nov. 3 ballot asking whether police should need a warrant to search electronic data.
The federal and state Constitution protects against unreasonable search and seizure of people’s “houses, papers, and effects” without a warrant.
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by Michael Maharrey Last month, a Minnesota House committee passed a bill that would reform asset forfeiture laws to prohibit the state from taking property without a criminal conviction. It would also close a loophole that allows police to circumvent more strict state laws by passing cases off to the federal government. But the bill faces significant law enforcement opposition as it continues through the legislative process. A bipartisan coalition of 15 representatives introduced House Bill 3725 (HF3725) on March 14. The legislation would reform Minnesota law by requiring a criminal conviction before prosecutors could proceed with asset forfeiture and would end civil asset forfeiture in the state. Grassroots activists on the ground in Minnesota say powerful law enforcement lobbying interests could jeopardize passage of HF3725. Follow the Money Police opposition to this legislation in Minnesota is illustrative. This same kind of intense push-back happens in every state that considers asset forfeiture reform, and the arguments being used by Minnesota police lobbyists feature the same twisted logic and duplicity we see across the country. Several law enforcement officers representing various lobbying groups testified during the House committee hearing on HF3725. They swore asset forfeiture wasn’t about the money, but virtually all of their…
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by Printus LeBlanc It seems like every day there is a chorus of officials celebrating Special Counsel Robert Mueller. If you dare question his integrity, you are to be banished to the gulags. However, with a little bit of research you will find out his career as a law enforcement officer is filled with mistakes, mishaps, and questionable policies. Once such policy is the subject of a Human Rights Watch report titled Dark Side: Secret Origins of Evidence in US Criminal Cases. The report details the practice of “parallel construction” in criminal investigations. What is parallel construction, why should every civil libertarian fear it, and what does this have to do with Robert Mueller? Parallel construction is a law enforcement technique used to build a criminal case against a suspect when law enforcement does not want to reveal the evidentiary basis for the investigation. The data comes from the NSA, which transmits it to a special unit in the DEA called the Special Operations Division (SOD). Within the SOD are representatives of several other agencies including the FBI, CIA, and IRS who are given “tips” to carry out their investigations. Let’s say local law enforcement receives a call from federal…
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Members of Congress brought renewed attention to a legislative effort to halt efforts by the Department of Justice to restart one of the most controversial civil forfeiture practices, so-called “adoptive” forfeitures. The practice, part of the equitable sharing program, allows state and local law enforcement to seize property in their jurisdictions and then hand it over to federal agencies to conduct the forfeiture. In return, the original seizing agency then receives up to 80 percent of the proceeds if the forfeiture is successful. In 2015, the Justice Department essentially halted this type of forfeiture amid growing concerns that it gave police and sheriffs a financial incentive to circumvent state laws when federal law made it easier to seize assets. Some state laws are more protective of property rights and more restrictive in how forfeiture funds can be raised and spent than federal law. The Justice Department’s decision was hailed by reform advocates, but in July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a directive reinstating adoptions. What Congress Has Done That move prompted pushback from lawmakers. Led by Reps. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Justin Amash, R-Mich., a bipartisan group of House members sought to put a stop to Sessions’ actions by blocking funding for the program. In September…
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