Latest news with #InstituteforJustice
New York Post
6 days ago
- New York Post
Big Brother is watching you — but this homeowner made him back down
Last month, Charlie Wolf attended a meeting of the Greers Ferry, Ark., city council to complain about a license-plate camera that he said was violating the Fourth Amendment by regularly taking pictures of his driveway and front yard. Greers Ferry Police Chief Kallen Lacy acknowledged Wolf's 'distress' but rejected his legal analysis, saying 'over 5,000 cities' across the country use such cameras, 'so there is no constitutional violation there.' Despite Lacy's assurance, the widespread acceptance of automated license-plate readers as a crime-fighting tool only magnifies the privacy concerns they raise. They enable routine surveillance of a sort that would have troubled the Fourth Amendment's framers. 'Unlike red-light cameras or speed cameras that are triggered by specific violations,' the Institute for Justice notes, ALPRs 'photograph every vehicle that drives by and can use artificial intelligence to create a profile with identifying information that then gets stored in a massive database. 'Once that happens, officials can search the database for any vehicle they wish, all without a warrant.' Worse, 'departments around the country are automatically sharing data with each other, making it simple for police anywhere to track drivers' movements. 'All of this arbitrary discretion threatens people's privacy, security and freedom of movement by creating an atmosphere where everyone knows they are being watched and tracked whenever they hit the road.' Wolf's experience crystallizes these concerns. As he noted at the city council meeting, the camera that was installed across the street from his house on May 13 was photographing 'our yard, curtilage and vehicles' whenever a car passed by. 'We're being photographed and entered into a database without consent or violation of any law,' Wolf said. The camera captured images of Wolf and his wife whenever they left their home or returned to it. The camera also documented the comings and goings of the Wolfs' visitors, including their friends, children and grandchildren. Depending on the vagaries of traffic, it might record trips to the mailbox, kids playing in the yard or anything else happening in front of the house. Local officials initially were unfazed by the Wolfs' complaints, insisting that the camera, one of five installed in the tiny town under a contract with the ALPR company Flock Safety, would stay where it was. But they reconsidered after receiving a letter from Institute for Justice attorney Joshua Windham, who explained why the couple's objections deserved more respect than they had received. In 2018, Windham noted, the Supreme Court held that the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when it collected cellphone location data without a warrant supported by probable cause. That ruling, he explained, was based on the principle that the Fourth Amendment 'must preserve at least as much privacy as Americans would have enjoyed when it was adopted.' Back then, Windham observed, 'police lacked the means to create a historical record of people's physical movements' because 'they simply did not have the manpower or the technology to do so.' He noted that a federal judge in Iowa and two state supreme courts have recognized that 'the placement of a surveillance camera in front of a home,' like tracking someone's movements via cellphone data, 'may violate a reasonable privacy expectation.' Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The morning after Windham sent that letter, Greers Ferry officials posted a defense of ALPRs that read like a Flock press release. But by the end of the month, they had agreed to remove the camera that was spying on the Wolfs. That small victory for privacy was followed a week later by another encouraging development: Scarsdale, NY, terminated its ALPR contract with Flock Safety after more than 400 residents signed a petition expressing concern about 'the broad and lasting implications of deploying such a surveillance system.' The official rationale for the town's decision was lack of funding. But the criticism provoked by the project suggests Americans are beginning to recognize the perils of surrendering their privacy in the name of public safety. Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.
Boston Globe
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court revives suit from victims of botched FBI raid
Advertisement The couple barricaded themselves in a closet. The agents dragged Cliatt out at gunpoint and handcuffed him. They told Martin to keep her hands up as she pleaded to see her 7-year-old son, who had been asleep in another room. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up As they questioned Cliatt, he gave his address. It was different from the one for the suspected gang hideout the agents had a warrant to enter. One of the agents, Lawrence Guerra, had earlier identified the correct house, which he said looked similar and was nearby, on a different street. But on the morning of the raid, he said he went to the wrong house because he had been misdirected by his GPS device. That could not be confirmed, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court, as Guerra threw the device away not long after the raid. Gorsuch added that the agents had overlooked plenty of indications they were in the wrong place — a street sign, a house number, and a different car parked in the driveway. Advertisement The couple sued for false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, battery, and other claims but lost in the lower courts on a variety of grounds. Notably, that government officials' actions are protected from lawsuits when they perform a duty that involves discretion. The case turned on the Federal Tort Claims Act, which sometimes allows suits against the government for money notwithstanding the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which ordinarily bars such suits unless the government consents. A 1974 amendment to the law made it easier to sue over wrong-house raids after notorious ones in Collinsville, Ill., but the law is subject to a tangled series of 13 exceptions. 'If federal officers raid the wrong house, causing property damage and assaulting innocent occupants, may the homeowners sue the government for damages?' Gorsuch asked in his opinion. 'The answer is not as obvious as it might be.' The court clarified aspects of the analysis of when such cases are allowed and returned the case to the lower courts for further consideration. In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said 'there is reason to think' that the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail, saying that Congress had amended the law in response to the Collinsville raids to allow cases like this one. Patrick Jaicomo, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represented the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling. 'The Supreme Court was right to let the Martin family's case move forward for the FBI's botched raid of their home,' he said in a statement. 'The court's decision today acknowledged how far the circuit courts have strayed from the purpose of the Federal Tort Claims Act, which is to ensure remedies to the victims of federal harms.' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Forbes
12-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
A Big Step Forward To Rethinking Licensing
Craig Hunt at his barber shop in Iowa. Craig advocated for a new pathway to become a barber in his ... More state. Iowa is changing how people in the United States enter the barbering and cosmetology fields. Across the country the path to legally cutting and styling hair is fairly similar: spend months or years at a school in order to build enough hours to take the state required exams. More than half the states require a cosmetologist to have 1,500 hours of schooling. To pay for this schooling, students typically take on student loans. In Iowa, the average cost is more than $20,000 with more than 70% of students needing a loan. Only around 4 of 10 cosmetology students in the state graduate on time and 1 out of 3 doesn't graduate within two years. But the Governor just signed legislation to provide aspiring barbers and cosmetologists a path that leads much more quickly to a paycheck. HF 711 lets aspiring barbers and cosmetologists work in licensed shops under the supervision of a licensed professional. When someone reaches 2,000 hours of work, they can also apply for a license themselves if they want to strike out on their own. Unlicensed barbers and cosmetologists still have to first receive education about the laws, rules, and sanitation practices of the occupation. Customers have to be informed before they receive any services from an unlicensed employee. The law also makes it clear that the state department overseeing these businesses is empowered to inspect businesses as often as it feels necessary. This makes learning to work as a barber or cosmetologist similar to other professions such as chefs. The government doesn't make aspiring chefs attend culinary school before they can cook for the public. Most places let chefs get into the kitchen after they've passed a test on how to safely handle food. This allows chefs to pursue the training that works best for them and their aspirations—as well as their pocketbooks. Indeed, an Institute for Justice study released earlier this year found that the number of hours required to get a license had no effect on whether salons or barbershops passed inspection. The study compared barbershops in Alabama to those of barbershops in neighboring Mississippi, which requires 50% more hours of training. Businesses in both states performed almost identically, with those nearest the border passing at least 95% of inspections on average. Signing of the bill is welcome news to Craig Hunt, who operates two barbershops in Iowa and has seen many people give up because of the time and expense of becoming licensed. In fact, Craig dropped out of a program when he was younger. When he decided that barbering was his calling, he had to start from ground zero. Craig was one of a dedicated group of barbers who spent months talking with lawmakers at the Iowa capitol. His message was clear: 'The way we've been doing things for decades isn't working. The establishment training program gives us a third option, a new way for us licensed barbers to help shape the next generation.' With the governor's signature, Craig can give someone a job after basic health and safety instruction instead of turning them away and directing them to get 1,550 hours of traditional and costly schooling. Craig has been teaching barbering for years through an apprenticeship program and is confident that the new model will provide his customers with good service. Every state surrounding Iowa required less education to get a barber's license. Now Iowa has leaped ahead of not only its neighbors but the rest of the U.S. Licenses are not going to disappear, but the barriers that stood between people and the career of their choosing are about to become easily surmountable.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SWAT Raid Fallout: McKinney Ordered To Compensate Homeowner
A ruling years in the making affirms property rights in a case previously reported by The Dallas Express. A federal judge has ordered the City of McKinney to pay nearly $60,000 in damages to a woman whose home was destroyed during a 2020 SWAT standoff—despite her having no connection to the fugitive inside. Vicki Baker, a cancer patient and retired grandmother, was preparing to relocate to Montana when police descended on her property. The SWAT team was pursuing her former handyman, who had barricaded himself inside her McKinney home. 'I told them, 'Please don't destroy my house,'' Baker recalled to NBC 5. They did anyway. What followed was a five-year legal battle in which the city refused to pay for the $60,000-plus in property damage, forcing Baker to dip into her retirement savings just to make the home livable again. With the help of the Institute for Justice, Baker took the city to court, arguing that government agents who destroy private property—regardless of motive—should be held financially accountable. 'We're trying to establish that even if the government is acting for a legitimate reason, they must compensate property owners for what they destroy,' said attorney Jeffrey Redfern. The city previously offered a partial settlement, but Baker refused, pushing for full compensation and a broader legal precedent. Last week, a federal judge agreed and ordered McKinney to pay $59,656.69. City officials told NBC 5 they are 'evaluating options for appealing the ruling.' Baker, now retired and living on Social Security, says she fought not just for herself but for others who might one day find themselves in her position. 'It was disastrous for me, but what if it were a single mom with no savings? Someone has to stand up,' she said. The ruling could signal a growing trend of courts reining in unchecked government immunity when innocent citizens bear the cost of public safety operations.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Yahoo
Judge rules in favor of Texas woman after SWAT destroyed her house while pursuing a fugitive
Five years after police destroyed cancer survivor Vicki Baker's house while pursuing a fugitive, a federal judge has ruled that the Texas city she used to call home must pay her for the damage. "I've continued fighting this long, because if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone," Baker told Fox News Digital in an emailed statement. "This case has always been about more than the money for me. I want to see real change." Baker's ordeal started in July 2020, when she moved to Montana and was in the process of selling her home in McKinney, Texas. 'This Is Personal': Marine Veteran Reacts To Judgment On Federal Loophole Police Used To Seize His Cash Wesley Little kidnapped a 15-year-old girl, fled from police and took refuge in Baker's home. Police surrounded the house and Little eventually released the teen but refused to surrender, according to court documents. A SWAT team tried to draw him out by launching a barrage of tear gas canisters at the house, shattering windows and punching holes in walls. Read On The Fox News App When police finally entered the house, they discovered that Little had killed himself. Baker's daughter's Chihuahua was inside during the onslaught and was left blind, deaf and sick from the tear gas and explosions. The dog eventually had to be put down, Baker said. A hazmat crew disposed of almost everything inside the house because it was saturated with a toxic film from the teargas, according to court documents. Damage to the home totaled at least $50,000, according to Baker and her attorneys at the nonprofit civil liberties law firm Institute for Justice. But her insurance company refused to cover the bulk of the damage because her policy — like most — excludes damage caused by the government. Justice Department Halts Dea's Random Searches Of Airport Travelers After Report Finds 'Serious Concerns' Baker tried to file a property damage claim with the city of McKinney, but officials refused to pay, citing qualified immunity, a doctrine often used to shield police and other government agencies from being sued for violating people's rights or destroying property during the course of their work. The Institute for Justice sued under the Fifth Amendment and the Texas Constitution, arguing that police may have been authorized to seize Baker's home in the interest of pursuing a dangerous fugitive, but that they should have to pay her just like they would if the government seized a home to build a road or other infrastructure. A prolonged legal saga followed, with one federal judge ruling in 2022 that Baker should be compensated and a jury awarding her nearly $60,000 in damages. The following year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her Fifth Amendment win. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case last year, but Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the high court has yet to address whether the government can require individuals to bear the cost of police actions. Last week, a U.S. district court judge ruled again that Baker is entitled to $59,656.59 plus interest under the Texas Constitution. "This ruling makes it clear that the Texas Constitution's promise of just compensation applies when police destroy innocent people's property, and that this entire lawsuit could have been avoided if the city simply did the right thing in the first place," IJ attorney Jeffrey Redfern, who represented Baker, said in an emailed statement to Fox News Digital. The City of McKinney is "evaluating its options for appealing this ruling," a spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital. The city previously offered to pay the full amount of the damage to settle the case, but Baker's team says they refused to settle unless the city also changed its policies to protect all homeowners from similar actions in the future. Redfern said he still hopes the Supreme Court will hear a case similar to Baker's in the future so "we can ensure that the United States Constitution also protects innocent property owners in cases like this." "I want to make sure that cities around the country are doing the right thing and paying just compensation to people in similar situations," Baker article source: Judge rules in favor of Texas woman after SWAT destroyed her house while pursuing a fugitive
