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Tag: Civil Liberties

Sen. Graham Seeks Legal Path for Americans Targeted in Jack Smith Dragnet
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Just The News, Approved, National

Sen. Graham Seeks Legal Path for Americans Targeted in Jack Smith Dragnet

By John Solomon | Just the News Graham also made clear he intends to seek punishment against U.S. District Judge James , Boasberg. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, tells Just the News he is planning to introduce legislation to allow any Americans, not just senators, whose privacy was violated by ex-Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s sweeping investigation into conservatives to sue the government for damages.During an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast, the South Carolina Republican explained why senators slipped into last week’s spending bill that reopened the federal government a provision allowing eight senators whose phone records were subpoenaed by Smith to sue for damages. He also pushed back again...
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Colorado Accused of Abandoning Constitution in Handling of Tina Peters Case
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Illinois Review, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Accused of Abandoning Constitution in Handling of Tina Peters Case

By Mark Vargas | Commentary, Illinois Review Colorado officials want the public to believe that keeping former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters in prison is justice. But when a woman’s health is collapsing, when she is rapidly declining, and when her continued confinement now poses a direct threat to her life, the law tells a very different story. Colorado is not simply neglecting its responsibility – it is violating its own constitution. Article II, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution states in unmistakable terms: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” While this language mirrors the Eighth Amendment, Colorado’s Supreme Court has long interpreted its own provision more broadly than the federal min...
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A mother, a signature and a shutdown: The Waltmans’ five-year battle for answers
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A mother, a signature and a shutdown: The Waltmans’ five-year battle for answers

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice In the photo Vira Waltman is 91, holding her great-granddaughter Everly. “She was joyful and funny,” said her granddaughter Lauren Tacheny. “She was teasing Everly about touching her Shirley Temple doll—that was her personality: protective, spunky and sharp-witted.” Vira Jean Waltman with her great-granddaughter Everly, weeks before Colorado’s COVID-19 lockdown. Up until the year before she died, Vira was still playing piano and organ at the All Saints Lutheran Church chapel in Brush every Christmas Eve service. “Music was everything to her,” said her grandson Ian Waltman. A law that disappeared behind glass For years, her son John Waltman carried his mother’s notarized Medical Durable Power of Attorney. “It was supp...
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On the five-year anniversary of 2020, Michigan court moves goalposts on attorneys who exposed Antrim County’s machines
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

On the five-year anniversary of 2020, Michigan court moves goalposts on attorneys who exposed Antrim County’s machines

By A.L. Goodwin | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Five years after the 2020 election, Michigan courts are still litigating its aftermath. At the center are two attorneys, Stefanie Lambert and Matt DePerno, who led the Antrim County lawsuit that first exposed errors in the county’s vote tabulation. What began as a civil discovery dispute has now turned into a criminal prosecution—one that critics say rewrites the law after the fact and redefines ordinary litigation as “unauthorized possession” of election equipment. On November 3, 2025—the five-year mark of the 2020 election—the Michigan prosecution of attorneys Matt DePerno and Stephanie Lambert took a troubling turn. The Oakland County Circuit Court order (Case No. 2023-285759-FH) leaves no question where the balance tilts. J...
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FBI and DOJ Coordinated with White House on Secretive ‘Arctic Frost’ Surveillance of Trump Associates
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Just The News, Approved, National

FBI and DOJ Coordinated with White House on Secretive ‘Arctic Frost’ Surveillance of Trump Associates

By Jerry Dunleavy | Just the News Evidence continues to emerge showing the top levels of the Biden Administration involved in the investigations into once-and-future rival Donald Trump. Members of the Biden White House and leaders at the Biden-era Justice Department and FBI were all involved in efforts linked to the launch of the Arctic Frost investigation which targeted then-former President Donald Trump and MAGA World over the events surrounding January 6, 2021. Recently-declassified revelations related to the FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation chronicle the 2022 lawfare assault against then-former President Donald Trump and MAGA world, as criminal inquiries — which would soon lead to criminal charges — spun into high gear as Trump leaned toward running for p...
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License Plate Readers Expand Across Colorado, Raising Privacy Concerns
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

License Plate Readers Expand Across Colorado, Raising Privacy Concerns

By: Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado Police across Colorado say they make communities safer, but privacy experts have a different opinion about license plate readers. While license plate readers have been around for decades, the cameras now capture, not just license plates, but vast troves of information. That information is fed into a national database, where it can be combined with other surveillance to develop detailed travel patterns of millions of people as they go to a political rally, or an abortion clinic, a house of worship, or a gay bar. The cameras are so prolific that it's difficult to avoid them in many cities. Boulder software engineer Will Freeman is the first to begin mapping them. A year ago, he didn't even know what license plate readers looked like, let alone w...
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When lawmakers silence citizens, who holds them accountable?
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

When lawmakers silence citizens, who holds them accountable?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Does legislative immunity mean CO legislators who cut people’s testimony off face no personal consequence? The Colorado Politics article below details a recent Federal appeals court hearing to determine what limits a legislator could place on a citizen’s speech without facing consequences. The case at hand stems from a couple of hearings back in the regular 2024 legislative session. The plaintiffs in the suit allege that lawmakers who cut off the mics of those trying to testify on bills relating to gender issues were illegally censoring them.** Quoting the article: “The plaintiffs have argued that Democratic committee chairs inappropriately cut them off while they were testifying because the witnesses re...
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Report: Jan. 6 Committee’s Massive Data Sweep Targeted Conservatives and Trump Allies
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Just The News, Approved, National

Report: Jan. 6 Committee’s Massive Data Sweep Targeted Conservatives and Trump Allies

By John Solomon and Jerry Dunleavy | Just the News More details continue to emerge about the collusion between Democrats in Congress and Biden's weaponized DOJ in targeting Trump. Congressional investigators collected a stunning 30 million lines of phone data mapping contacts between conservatives and the Trump White House in the name of investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, a massive dragnet that raises civil liberty concerns about the lack of limits on the ability of lawmakers to snoop on Americans' private phone calls.    The mountainous collection of phone records were revealed to the FBI led by Chris Wray in late 2023 by former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a GOP member on the Democrat-run House Jan. 6 select committee. The cache was offered to the bureau on the eve of th...
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FBI Surveillance of GOP Lawmakers Raises Questions About Abuse of Power
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The Federalist, Approved, National

FBI Surveillance of GOP Lawmakers Raises Questions About Abuse of Power

By Hans Mahncke | The Federalist The FBI secretly monitored the phone records of eight sitting Republican senators in an abusive fishing expedition done with impunity. In 1972, a small team of operatives connected to President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate complex to install listening devices. To this day, there is no conclusive evidence that Nixon personally ordered — or even knew of — the break-in beforehand. Yet Watergate shaped American political consciousness for decades. It gave the world a permanent suffix for scandal and became the ultimate symbol of abuse of power, a crisis so severe that it culminated in the only resignation of a U.S. president to preempt removal from office. Fast forward 50 y...
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When the prosecutor is also the judge: Colorado’s due process problem under Griswold’s watch
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

When the prosecutor is also the judge: Colorado’s due process problem under Griswold’s watch

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I wouldn’t blame someone for thinking the fix is in at a Colorado Administrative Law hearing (especially in the SOS’s Office). If you break one of our state regulatory agencies’ copious rules, the process for our state’s administrative hearings bears little resemblance to a real trial. I recently did some looking into the state’s administrative hearings process, and was disappointed in what I found.The idea of this being a hearing in front of an independent, nominally-impartial, and disinterested judge is decidedly NOT what the process looks like.This goes, as you might imagine for an office run by Jena Griswold, double for the Secretary of State’s Office.More in the op ed below.https://completecolorado.com/2025/09/22/p...
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