Dear John,

As we set our sights on 2026, IJ looks forward to advancing our efforts to fight widespread abuses of government power.

Please add your support this Giving Tuesday to help defend the rights of all Americans. Here are a few cases to keep an eye on as the new year begins:

Approaching very soon is the next step in our case fighting for Katherin Youniacutt and Tammy Thompson, two Texas grandmothers who were denied the right to work as social workers due to their past struggles with addiction and a single decades-old criminal conviction each. We have an appellate hearing in December that will allow us to prove that past mistakes shouldn’t define who you are. In the process, we will reaffirm the strong constitutional protections for economic liberty that IJ has previously established in Texas.

We are gearing up for a trial in January in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to fight alongside Honey Meerzon and Luis Romero after the town invoked a bogus “blight” designation to try and take their well-maintained properties. We already have established solid precedent in New Jersey and other states to prevent local governments from using blight as a means to abuse their eminent domain power, but we must reinforce that precedent to ensure courts don’t backtrack and permit cities to wipe out entire neighborhoods and swaths of businesses they deem undesirable.

In February we are headed back to Norfolk, Virginia, as we fight the unrestrained use of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras. The cameras snap photos of every car that drives by. These photos then get uploaded into a database that law enforcement officers can comb through and create maps of the residents’ movements—creating a virtual “fingerprint.” The town installed 176 cameras, all strategically placed to capture every resident’s daily travel. This Big Brother surveillance infringes upon the privacy rights guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment, and we intend to show the courts just that: Constant surveillance without a warrant is a clear constitutional violation.

IJ is also preparing to take on the federal government before the 9th Circuit in a few short months. We are fighting an order by the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that subjects small business owners and their customers to warrantless financial surveillance of everyday transactions. We intend to show the appeals court that this order risks the livelihoods of honest business owners throughout the southern U.S. and invades the financial privacy of innocent Americans.

This is just a small fraction of the activity we will be seeing in the year ahead. Add your support for IJ today and stand with us as we continue to champion the individual liberties guaranteed under the Constitution.

Scott  

Scott G. Bullock
President and Chief Counsel
Institute for Justice