August 2024

On Constitution Day, we’re excited to announce the launch of the New Civil Liberties Alliance’s brand-new website! Our redesigned platform is faster, easier to navigate, and packed with all the latest updates on our work defending your civil liberties.

Here’s what you can look forward to:

Streamlined Content: Use the new database to search our cases, and easily find, with just a few clicks, op-eds and news about our efforts to rein in the Administrative State.

Enhanced Resources: Easily explore in-depth materials for scholars, practitioners, students, and allies on how we’re challenging unlawful government actions and how you can stay informed.

Fresh Look: Modern design that’s user-friendly and accessible across all your devices.

Check it out and let us know what you think! Visit us at nclalegal.org and stay engaged with our mission to protect your constitutional liberties.

Thank you for your continued support and click on the recent case updates below to read them on the new website!

The Latest

After a prolific term at the Supreme Court, NCLA continues to fight Administrative State power abuses on behalf of all Americans.

Seven Supreme Court Victories Underscore NCLA’s Success in Limiting Unlawful Administrative Power

NCLA achieved truly historic results at the U.S. Supreme Court this past term. Representing courageous clients in three pivotal cases and scoring major victories before the high court in five amicus cases, NCLA advanced the civil liberties of Americans nationwide, moved the country in a more constitutional direction, and further dismantled the unlawful Administrative State. Read more >>>

District Court Orders ATF to Return NCLA Client’s Bump Stock
After Supreme Court Win

The U.S. District Court for the District of Utah has granted NCLA’s request for summary judgment in Aposhian v. Garland, NCLA’s original case challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ unilateral bump-stock ban. Citing the Supreme Court’s historic June ruling against the ban in NCLA’s Garland v. Cargill case, the District Court permanently blocked ATF from enforcing the defeated regulation against NCLA’s client, Clark Aposhian, and anyone else in Utah. The District Court further ordered ATF to return the bump stock Mr. Aposhian had been forced to surrender in early 2019—when our injunction made him the “only man in America legally allowed to keep his bump stock.” NCLA celebrates the vindication of Mr. Aposhian’s civil liberties. Read more >>>

Cases to Watch

For well over half a century, Mr. De León has passionately dedicated his career as a writer and artist to the advancement and celebration of Chicano culture, history, and language.

NCLA Helping Acclaimed Chicano Poet Fight San Antonio’s Dismissal of Him in Free Speech Dispute

NCLA filed a Complaint against the City of San Antonio and city employee Krystal Jones for unlawfully firing accomplished Chicano writer, artist, and activist Nephtalí De León as the City’s poet laureate in violation of his protected free speech. The City unjustly terminated Mr. De León from the paid position of city poet laureate and then defamed him for his supposed use of a “racial slur” in an elegy he had written in honor of a renowned Chicano writer-activist who had dedicated his life to fighting racial injustice. The City’s unlawful and unwarranted actions have harmed Mr. De León’s professional reputation and denigrated his life’s work. NCLA urges the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to correct this affront to the First Amendment and thereby help Mr. De León restore his good name. Read more >>>

The new salary requirement would require employers to either raise salaries or reclassify these employees as hourly.

NCLA Asks Court to End DOL’s Illegal Power Grab, Overturn Wage and Overtime Exemption Rule

NCLA has requested summary judgment in Flint Avenue v. Department of Labor, urging the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to vacate a new rule that exceeds DOL’s statutory authority. The Final Rule sets a $58,656 minimum-salary requirement for determining whether “white collar” employees are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) minimum wage and overtime requirements. In so doing, the Rule would unlawfully prevent employers, including countless small businesses, from claiming the exemption for 7.7 million white-collar employees nationwide who are paid less than the new salary requirement, and from offering flexible work arrangements. Read more >>>

DOL violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Regulatory Flexibility Act by failing to adequately consider significant costs of withdrawing the 2021 rule and replacing it with the 2024 rule.

NCLA Asks Federal Court to Vacate the Dept. of Labor’s Unlawful New Independent Contractor Rule

NCLA has filed a motion for summary judgment in Colt & Joe Trucking v. U.S. Department of Labor, asking the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico to vacate DOL’s vague new independent contractor rule. Promulgated earlier this year, the rule distorts the standard for determining if someone hired by a company can be classified as an independent contractor, instead of an employee subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) wage and hour requirements. This leaves small businesses like Colt & Joe Trucking unable to hire independent contractors without risking FLSA liability. Read more >>>

The CAT is an unprecedented database that radically changes SEC’s role—enabling it to directly monitor tens of millions of people’s investments.

NCLA Asks Court to Uphold Suit, Stop SEC’s Unauthorized and Unlawful Mass Data Dragnet

NCLA has made the latest key filing in its Davidson, Restivo, NCPPR v. Gensler, et al. lawsuit, which seeks to block the SEC’s unlawful “Consolidated Audit Trail” program—also known as the “CAT.” NCLA’s clients are suing SEC and CAT LLC, the company that SEC established to operate the CAT database. NCLA’s new brief in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas opposes motions that Defendants filed to dismiss the case and reiterates its earlier request that the court instead issue a preliminary injunction halting the CAT. Read more >>>

The support of so many formidable amici—even at the trial level—demonstrates this case’s historic importance.

Powerful Amici Briefs Endorse NCLA Suit Against SEC’s Unauthorized and Illegal Mass Data Dragnet

Nineteen states, current and former government officials, research organizations, advocacy groups, and litigators have filed seven forceful amici curiae briefs in support of NCLA’s lawsuit seeking to block the Securities and Exchange Commission’s unlawful CAT program. The CAT is the largest government-mandated mass collection of personal financial data in American history. Without any statutory authorization from Congress, SEC is forcing brokers, exchanges, clearing agencies and alternative trading systems to capture and send detailed information on every investor’s trades in U.S. markets to a centralized database. SEC and private regulators can access this database forever, but they cannot ensure its security. On behalf of Erik Davidson, John Restivo, and the National Center for Public Policy Research, NCLA thanks amici for standing up against this unprecedented assault on Americans’ constitutional rights. Read more >>>

FDIC seeks to punish Mr. Ponte administratively over allegations that he vehemently denies, depriving him of the chance to defend himself in a jury trial in an Article III court.

NCLA Seeks to Halt FDIC’s Attempted Illegal Prosecution of Enforcement Target Without Jury Trial

NCLA has filed a Complaint urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stop the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) from keeping our client, John C. Ponte, trapped in an unlawful administrative enforcement proceeding. Mr. Ponte is neither a banker nor does he own or control any banks, which is FDIC’s sole statutory purview. Read more >>>

A bedrock foundation of due process is a fair trial in a fair tribunal. That should mean the adjudicator cannot decide its own case.

NCLA Fights SEC’s Unconstitutional “Rubber-Stamp” Follow-on Enforcement Proceedings

NCLA filed a Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the SEC’s illegitimate “follow-on” enforcement proceeding against Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson, an ordained Greek Orthodox priest and activist investor. A Massachusetts federal jury in 2021 rejected nearly all of SEC’s baseless charges against Fr. Lemelson, including all its incendiary allegations that he engaged in a scheme to defraud the market and even his own fund investors. Yet, SEC now threatens to bar or suspend him from the securities industry using its own “follow-on” administrative proceeding, in which SEC has appointed itself as the judge and jury. NCLA’s filing asks the D.C. District Court to stop this “caricature of structural adjudicative bias” and declare it unlawful. Read more >>>

NIH’s refusing to cross-reference PubMed-catalogued studies by authors who have published under multiple names violates Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment guarantees to equal protection under the law.

NCLA Suit Demands NIH Change PubMed Name-Change Policy that Harms Women Authors in Science

NCLA filed a Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Reyngold v. NIH, aimed at forcing the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine to allow all versions of scientific researchers’ names to appear in searches on its PubMed search engine. When PubMed users search for publications by NCLA client Dr. Marsha Reyngold or another scientist who changed their name, only articles authored using the searched version of the name are found, excluding the author’s works written under different names. NCLA asks the Court to require a correction of this systematic violation of accomplished researchers’ constitutional rights. Read more >>>

Click here for more cases to watch

Friends of the Court

The rental property owners argue CDC’s eviction moratorium constituted either a compensable taking or an illegal exaction under the Fifth Amendment.

In NCLA Amicus Win, Federal Circuit Revives Lawsuit Against CDC’s Illegal Eviction Moratorium

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that dismissed the Darby Development Company v. U.S. lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide eviction moratorium. The New Civil Liberties Alliance had filed an amicus curiae brief with the Federal Circuit in the case calling for this result. Unlike the Court of Federal Claims, the Federal Circuit correctly found dozens of rental property owners made a valid legal claim when they argued the moratorium was a physical taking of property for public use that required just compensation under the Fifth Amendment’s Taking Clause. NCLA celebrates this ruling, which remands the case to the Court of Claims for further proceedings, an important step in vindicating constitutional rights during emergencies. Read more >>>

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has successfully sued the Trump and Biden administrations, but we understand that all Americans—including controversial figures—must equally enjoy the freedom of speech.

NCLA Amicus Brief in NY Case Against Trump Explains Why NY’s Executive Law Violates Free Speech

NCLA, together with its founder Professor Philip Hamburger, filed an amicus curiae brief in New York v. Donald Trump. NCLA and Prof. Hamburger are asking the First Appellate Department of the New York Supreme Court to hold unconstitutional, on First Amendment grounds, a statute that New York Attorney General Letitia James is using to prosecute former President Trump for alleged fraud. Unlike common law fraud, New York Executive Law § 63.12 allows courts to punish defendants—as happened here—simply for making incorrect business statements, regardless of whether any inaccuracy was intentional (i.e., no need to prove mens rea) or whether anyone was harmed as a result. NCLA urges the Court to correct this violation of free speech rights for the sake of all Americans. Read more >>>

The Covid-19 pandemic was not the last emergency California will face, so the California Supreme Court must restore doctrinal clarity and explain how the Legislature may draft laws delegating power to the Executive.

NCLA Asks CA Supreme Court to Clarify State’s Nondelegation Doctrine in Wake of Pandemic Abuse

NCLA sent an amicus curiae letter asking the Supreme Court of California to hear Ghost Golf, Inc. v. Newsom and restore clear standards for applying the California Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine. The Emergency Services Act (ESA) allows the Governor to unilaterally declare a state of emergency and “amend or make new law” that would apply to residents. California’s Fifth Appellate Court upheld the Governor’s exercise of pure legislative power because it concluded the state Legislature’s ability to end the emergency declaration “adequately” guards against ESA’s standardless delegation. NCLA urges the California Supreme Court to review that flawed ruling and restore the requirement that statutes contain “sufficiently clear standards” when delegating legislative power to executive officials. Read more >>>

Click here for more amicus briefs to watch.

In the News

📰 The ‘Tell’ in Zuckerberg’s Letter to Congress, Prof. Hamburger, WSJ Opinion

📰 Judge orders ATF to return last ‘legal’ bump stock, Washington Examiner

📰 ATF ordered to return bump stock to Utah man after Supreme Court ruling, The Washington Times

📰 Bump-Stock Ban Held Invalid Under Recent Supreme Court Precedent, Bloomberg Law

📰 ‘Dystopian surveillance, suspicionless seizures’: Wall Street market monitor under attack, Politico

📰 Can a federal agency gag those who enter into settlement agreements? The SEC says yes., FIRE

📰 Judge Finds RFK Jr. Can Bring Censorship Lawsuit Against Biden Admin After Supreme Court Rejects States’ Challenge, Daily Caller
📰 Free Speech May Be In The Crosshairs Under A Harris-Walz Administration, Daily Caller

📰 Trucking company asks federal court to reverse new independent contractor rule, Land Line

📰 Fired poet Nephtalí De León sues city alleging a violation of free speech, San Antonio Report

🎧 New Inquiries into Secret Service Activities, Kamala Harris’ Economic Agenda, and the House Oversight Committee’s Investigation into Tim Walz’ Chinese Connections, Real Clear Politics Podcast interviewing Prof. Hamburger on his book