Brief of the New Civil Liberties Alliance as Amicus Curiae in Support of Appellant’s petition for rehearsing en banc.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) is a nonprofit civil-rights organization and public-interest law firm devoted to defending constitutional freedoms. The “civil liberties” of the organization’s name include rights at least as old as the U.S. Constitution itself, such as jury trial, due process of law, the right to be tried in front of an impartial and independent judge, and the right to live under laws made by the nation’s elected lawmakers through constitutionally prescribed channels. Yet these selfsame rights are also very contemporary– and in dire need of renewed vindication– precisely because Congress, federal administrative agencies, and sometimes even the courts have trampled them for so long.
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