"If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights." James Madison, 1792 press-pubs.uchicago.edu/foun…

Flock Senate Hearing: Congress Must Act NOW 🧵

Two Louisiana police officers pulled over Mario Rosales for allegedly failing to signal. They gave him Miranda warnings, frisked him, searched his pockets, and interrogated him. In all, the stop lasted over 21 minutes.

City to Ministry: "No Soup Kitchen for You!" In this video, Lighthouse Christian Ministries Director Kolin Oliveira describes his experience when the city of Wenatchee, Washington shut their soup kitchen without warning. Represented by IJ, we're fighting back in federal court. Learn more here: ij.org/press-release/wenatch…

5 officers in Indianapolis were just charged with misuse of Flock cameras. "Most of the allegations against the five officers involve a romantic partner or spouse being tracked illegally." fox59.com/news/indycrime/imp…

Right now. Senate Hearing on Flock. @IJ legislative counsel set to testify about our lawsuits and advocacy on automated license plate readers. piped.video/live/klE498xFjOY…

Federal Judge Orders ICE to Follow Constitution

One overlooked item in the ALPR debate: Flock and others had the good fortune of scaling up in the middle of a massive drop in crime that was *already happening.* They've been taking credit for a pre-existing trend. ij.org/how-flock-is-trying-t…

Guess who just defeated qualified immunity again? @IJ and our client, Mario! In Rosales v. Lewis, cops stopped Mario without legal justification, extended the stop, patted him down, and searched his pockets. Today, the 5th Cir. held that all violated clearly established law.

ICYMI: Alabama judge orders ICE to stop storming privately marked construction sites without a warrant and rounding up all the workers without reasonable suspicion. Because that violates the Fourth Amendment. ICE tried to justify detaining my client, who is an American citizen, without any evidence that he had done anything wrong. Response? "The Court is simply not inclined to take the Government’s word for it." Very grateful to have been part of the team @IJ that worked hard for nearly a year to make this happen.

A federal judge in Alabama has ruled that the Department of Homeland Security temporarily stop “likely unlawful” immigration raids and detentions at construction sites.

A federal court has ordered immigration officers in Alabama to stop warrantless raids of private construction sites and to stop detaining workers without individualized suspicion. The ruling comes after construction worker and U.S. citizen Leo Garcia Venegas was detained 3 times—even though he repeatedly presented a state-issued REAL ID. 🧵

“This decision is a huge blow to DHS’s lawless enforcement practices,” said IJ Sr. Attorney Jared McClain (@jaredmcclain). “The government stood up in court and argued that they don’t need warrants to enter private construction sites and round up all the workers, and that they can’t trust government-issued IDs. By setting aside those unconstitutional policies, the court has restored the rule of law. Construction workers like Leo can finally go to work in peace again.” Read the decision here: ij.org/wp-content/uploads/20…

I have the absolute best job. I'm so happy for our client Leo, who fought back after being unlawfully detained twice (and then a third mid-litigation). And I'm so thankful that my first time taking testimony in court was fighting for him.

BREAKING NEWS. Federal judge in Alabama orders ICE and CBP to stop warrantless raids of construction sites, to stop detaining people without individualized suspicion, and to stop detaining people who present valid ID. More coming shortly.

Insane story: Milwaukee police swatted an innocent couple 55 times in a single year, only stopping after they filed a lawsuit. "Body camera video shows one officer pointed a gun at the couple's door on their fourth response in a single day." tmj4.com/about-us/lighthouse…

LAW STUDENTS: Come join me at @IJ’s Fall Legal Intensive in Arlington on 11/7. Bobbi Taylor, @Kinger_DC, and I will be going through public-interest constitutional litigation from soup to nuts. Apply at the link below!

Who Pays When the Police Damage an Innocent Owner’s Property? Carlos Pena was in his print shop in North Hollywood when he heard loud noises outside. When he opened the front door, a man was running toward him. Close behind were U.S. Marshals with their guns drawn. In a second, the man barreled past Carlos and locked himself alone in the shop. Carlos watched helplessly as Marshals surrounded the storefront and later as the LAPD SWAT team fired dozens of tear gas cannisters through the walls, roof, doors, and windows. When the SWAT team finally entered the shop, the man was nowhere to be found. It was days before Carlos was allowed back in to survey the damage. His expensive printing equipment, as well as his inventory, was ruined. All told, it was about $60,000 in damage. But when he reached out to the city, he got no response. Carlos had insurance, but his policy (like many standard policies) did not cover damage done by the government. For years now, Carlos has been operating out of his garage and earning less because he can’t afford to replace the equipment he lost. When Carlos sued Los Angeles in 2023 with @IJ we knew that municipalities were often leaving innocent people high and dry after damaging their property. What we didn’t know was the scope of the problem. Thanks to our professional strategic research team, we just released the first nationwide survey to investigate claims for police damage. The study examined more than 2,700 claims across 222 municipalities over nine years. What we found was that paying for this damage can be a hardship for regular Americans but would hardly make a dent in government coffers. Sadly though, many municipalities refuse to pay even the worthiest of claims. The median value of a property damage claim in our data was $1,260, more than most Americans have in their emergency funds. The three most common types of claims were residential damage from routine law enforcement activities, vehicle damage, and residential damage from SWAT raids. Only about 1 in 10 claims was, like Carlos’, for $10,000 or more. We found that if the municipalities in our dataset had paid out every claim they received over the nine years of the study, it would have cost them only around $6,500 a year. That’s an important figure because cities often say paying such claims would bust their budgets. Yet this estimate amounts to 0.00052% of the average amount of direct general expenditures among the local governments in the study—a drop in the bucket. But right now, municipalities are routinely denying claims—60% of all claims with known outcomes and 41% of claims where the property owners were innocent bystanders. We also found that there are some places that generally try to do the right thing and pay most claims. Others pay almost none. For instance, when looking at claims for residential damage from tactical raids or pursuits, the District of Columbia had a payment rate of 0%. Officers on the scene sometimes assume that the municipality will compensate owners. We identified 243 claims records across 73 jurisdictions—nearly 10% of our records—in which claimants said officers told them how to file a claim or assured them the city would pay. This is likely an undercount because claims generally did not include details of conversations with law enforcement. In the United States, innocent property owners shouldn’t be left with bills when police damage their property while protecting the public. The Founding Fathers already came up with a solution: The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution requires that the government pay “just compensation” when the government “takes” property for a public use. Unfortunately, the district court and appeals court did not recognize Carlos’ right to compensation. But IJ is asking the Supreme Court to take his case and a similar case from a woman in South Bend, Indiana, whose home was damaged by a SWAT team. These cases will be considered in the next few weeks, so stay tuned to see whether they make their way to the nation’s highest court.

I’ve invited the CEOs of Flock Safety, Axon, Motorola and Verkada to testify in front of my committee NEXT WEEK. Americans deserve answers