Washington, DC (August 7, 2020) – “Buyer Beware” takes on a whole new meaning if you wish to see the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) safety standards for a product before purchasing it. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, today filed a reply to the government’s brief in the case of Lisa Milice v. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, taking the CPSC to task over the practice of keeping its standards hidden behind a private paywall.

Washington, DC (August 4, 2020) – The uncertainty of indefinite shutdowns and shifting reopening phases are causing hardship to people across Massachusetts. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, has filed an opening brief on behalf of plaintiff-petitioners in Dawn Desrosiers, et al. v. Governor Charles D. Baker.

Washington, DC (July 31, 2020) – For nearly 50 years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has imposed a Gag Rule that silences people with a lifetime gag enforced through a threat of a reopened prosecution. NCLA client Barry D. Romeril, the former Chief Financial Officer of Xerox, is challenging the constitutionality of such a gag imposed on him by the SEC in a 2003 settlement and consent order.

Washington, DC (July 28, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed a reply brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to support its petition for full court review in the case of Aposhian v. Barr. NCLA argues that the panel majority committed legal error in its 2-1 decision denying Mr. Aposhian’s appeal challenging the ban on bump stocks issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Washington, DC (July 21, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, today filed an opening brief in Asphalt Specialties Co., Inc. v. Laramie County Planning Commission with the Wyoming Supreme Court. NCLA is pushing back against the Laramie County Planning Commission with an appeal challenging the Commission’s unlawful decision to treat a mere “vision” document like restrictive zoning rules. The Commission did not comply with statutory requirements for zoning.

Washington, DC (July 21, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, has filed two different papers in the last 24 hours in Joel Fleming v. FDRLST Media, LLC. The papers include a response to the NLRB general counsel’s cross exceptions as well as a reply brief in support of the exceptions NCLA filed in response to the April 22nd decisionissued by Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Kenneth W. Chu.

Washington, DC (July 20, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed a joint amicus brief today in the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District in the case of Lent, et al. v. California Coastal Commission, et al. Warren and Henny Lent are challenging the multimillion-dollar penalty the California Coastal Commission (CCC) imposed against them under section 30821 of the California Coastal Act in violation of their due process rights.

Washington, DC (June 17, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, today filed a brief in opposition to the Motion to Dismiss submitted by the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Risk Management Agency (RMA), and the respective heads of those entities. NCLA clients Kevin Gubbels and Insure My Honey, Inc. are contesting the efforts of the agencies to summarily and indefinitely suspend his participation and that of his company’s insurance agents in the federal crop insurance program without due process.

Washington, DC (July 16, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed a response last night to an order to show cause in Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection v. Law Offices of Crystal Moroney, P.C. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. NCLA is challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) unconstitutional manner of being funded and its Director’s doomed attempts to ratify her own prior actions, taken while her authority to act was unconstitutional.

Washington, DC (July 15, 2020) – This Tax Day, New Hampshire resident James Harper filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) along with his tax return. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, represents Mr. Harper in James Harper v. Charles P. Rettig, et al. before the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Mr. Harper’s “crime”? Holding a bitcoin wallet.

Washington, DC (July 13, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed an amicus brief today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit challenging the lower court’s biased ruling in favor of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) in Thomas H. Buffington v. Robert L. Wilkie, Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Washington, DC (July 11, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, released a video today featuring the case of Phillip B. v. Mike Faust and Arizona Department of Child Safety. The video highlights the plight of NCLA client Phillip B. (whose name has been redacted to preserve his anonymity under court rules), who is challenging the decision of the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) to place his name on the Central Registry of child abusers before he had exhausted state-court appeals.

Washington, DC (July 8, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, commends today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the religious liberty of Catholic nuns in the Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania case. The Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the Little Sisters, holding that the religious exemption rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not violate…

Washington, DC (July 2, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, has filed a joint petition with Governor Charlie Baker and the Attorney General’s Office to transfer the case of Dawn Desrosiers, et al. v. Governor Charles D. Baker from Worcester Superior Court to the Supreme Judicial Court. The petition asks the Court to decide whether Governor Baker’s March 10, 2020 Civil Defense State of Emergency declaration and the ensuing emergency orders responding to the coronavirus pandemic are lawful exercises of gubernatorial authority.

Washington, DC (July 1, 2020) – The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued its decision today in Tom Wolf v. Joseph B. Scarnati, et al. in support of Governor Wolf. The court never even allowed oral argument in this very significant matter of state constitutional interpretation.

Washington, DC (June 30, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group today is celebrating a victory in the case of Carmen’s Corner Store, et al. v. U.S. Small Business Administration, et al. A federal judge granted a lifeline yesterday to Carmen’s Corner Store and Retail4Real, both businesses of Mr. Altimont Mark Wilks from Hagerstown, MD, who is desperately trying to keep its doors open.

Washington, DC (June 29, 2020) – Today the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the points argued by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group in its amicus brief filed in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last December. Accordingly, the Court struck down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director’s protection from Presidential removal as unconstitutional.

Washington, DC (June 26, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group filed a complaint in MoveCorp, et al. v. U.S. Small Business Administration, et al., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. NCLA represents Michael Loughrey, who is majority owner of MoveCorp, a moving company serving local business clients in Austin, Texas. The Small Business Administration (SBA) unlawfully denied Mr. Loughrey’s application for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act by virtue of SBA’s unlawful “Criminal History Rule,” which excludes all persons indicted or charged of any crime.

Washington, DC (June 26, 2020) – Altimont Mark Wilks, a small business owner from Hagerstown, Md., who was unlawfully barred from applying for a much-needed Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan, can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the Small Business Administration (SBA) on Mr. Wilks’s behalf on June 17.

Washington, DC (June 19, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance today filed a petition for rehearing en banc in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in the case of W. Clark Aposhian v. William Barr, Attorney General of the United States, et al. NCLA is seeking review from the full Court, arguing that the panel majority erred in last month’s 2-1 decision to deny NCLA client Clark Aposhian’s appeal.

Washington, DC (June 19, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, today filed exceptions and a supporting brief to the April 22nd decision issued by a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in Joel Fleming v. FDRLST Media, LLC.

Washington, DC (June 16, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights organization, has negotiated a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on behalf of its clients, Ray Lucia Sr. and Raymond J. Lucia Companies. Mr. Lucia waged a long, contentious battle, refusing to bow to an agency with unlimited resources unwilling to admit that its prosecution efforts had become wholly disproportionate to the alleged infraction.

Washington, DC (June 16, 2020) – Dr. Mukund Vengalattore was a well-liked and well-regarded young physics professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He spent all his time running a bustling lab full of graduate students and attracting steady streams of federal funding when his Title IX nightmare began. In 2014, a former grad student whom Cornell dismissed for academic reasons accused him of sexual misconduct. She had sworn publicly when leaving campus that she would make sure Dr. Vengalattore never got tenure, and she followed through with a Title IX complaint…

Washington, DC (June 11, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group filed the complaint, Carmen’s Corner Store, et al. v. U.S. Small Business Administration, et al., today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. NCLA represents Altimont Mark Wilks, a small business owner from Hagerstown, Md., who was unlawfully barred from applying for PPP loans because he is still on probation. The suit challenges unlawful portions of the agency’s Interim Final Rule…

Washington, DC (June 5, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in George K. Young, Jr. v. State of Hawaii, et al. in support of Mr. Young. NCLA’s brief dissuades the full court from deferring to state administrators’ factual speculations and to their interpretations of the U.S. Constitution or of state statutes and regulations.

Washington, DC (June 4, 2020) – Imagine being silenced for life and unable to tell your side of the story. There is a “Gag Rule” in place at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) meant to do just that. Every year, people are coerced into settling with the agency out of fear of a drawn-out, expensive administrative hearing process that can ruin reputations, disrupt families, destroy businesses, and end prosperous careers.

Washington, DC (June 3, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed an amicus brief  today in the Supreme Court of the United States in Sharonell Fulton, et al. v. City of Philadelphia, et al. In 2018, Philadelphia abruptly terminated foster placement through Catholic Social Services (CSS) leaving foster parents like Sharonell Fulton, who has fostered more than 40 children, without CSS’s support.

Washington, DC (June 2, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group filed the complaint, Matthew Johnson v. Philip D. Murphy, et al., today against Governor Murphy in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, challenging Executive Order No. 128. The order, which violates federal constitutional law, state constitutional law, state contract law and state landlord-tenant law, purports to allow tenants to use their security deposits to offset rent or back rent.

Washington, DC (June 2, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed an amicus brief today in the Oregon Supreme Court in Elkhorn Baptist Church, et al. v. Katherine Brown. A broad coalition of local churches brought the case after being seriously disturbed by Governor Katherine Brown’s restrictions on religious gatherings since late March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Washington, DC (June 2, 2020) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, has filed a complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska. The case, Kevin Gubbels and Insure My Honey, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Risk Management Agency, was filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Risk Management Agency (RMA), and the respective heads of those entities.