Property and Privacy Rights

Property and Privacy Rights are a category that deserves a subsite of its own. In recent decades there has been a steady erosion of such rights, despite a few gains, which trend toward the reduction of estates in land into tenancies at will, seizure and forfeiture of property without conviction of a crime, and intrusion into private spaces.

Organizations and Activists

• American Land Foundation — Defend property rights for real property.
  • Propertyrights.org
• Stewards of the Range — Work to protect property rights, especially against federal actions, such as EPA actions.
• Liberty Matters — Current issues, strategies, and public policy of constitutional consequence.
• Property Rights Research — Collection of all kinds of resources.
• Texas Cattle Feeders Association — Represents the cattle feeding industry in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
• American Farm Bureau Federation — The Voice of Agriculture.
  • Texas Farm Bureau — Agriculture's Voice in the Lone Star State.
  • Virginia Farm Bureau — Agriculture's Voice in the Old Dominion.
• The Heartland Institute — Cover environmental, property rights, and education issues.
• Competitive Enterprise Institute — Supports private-sector solutions to public problem.
• Political Economy Research Center (PERC) — The Center for Free Market Environmentalism
• Defenders of Property Rights
• Property Rights Foundation of America, Inc.
• National Association of Rural Landowners
• Property Owners Standing Together
• Contribute to the Sawgrass Relief fund
• Sawgrass Rebellion
• Mountain States Legal Foundation
• Institute for Justice
• Goldwater Institute
• Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO)
• American Property Rights Alliance (APRA)
• Resolve Against Property Takings' Organized Resistance (RAPTOR)
• American Policy Center
• American Land Rights Association
• Palazzolo v. Rhode Island web site
• Castle Coalition
• Property Rights USA
• Institute for Local Self Government
• The Congressional Institute
• The Independent Institute — Their focus is broader than just property or privacy rights, but have useful articles on those.
• Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA)
• Landrights.com — Collection of many useful resources.
• Center for Democracy and Technology — Focus on internet issues.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation — Protects attacks on rights of internet users.
• EPIC Online Guide to Privacy Resources — Comprehensive collection of links.
• The Liberty Alliance Project — Advancing an alternative to a national ID system to avoid identity theft but preserve liberty.

Documents

• The Property Rights Origins of Privacy Rights, by Mary Chlopecki.
• Seizure Disorder: Seattle's "drug nuisance abatement" program is a menace to law-abiding property owners, by Michelle Malkin, Reason, March 1999.
• Bennis v. Michigan: Forfeiting the Due Process Rights of the Innocent Owner, by Graeme S. R. Brown, New England School of Law Review, Vol. 32 No. 2.
• Cong. Ron Paul Introduces "Privacy Package" To Stop "Big Brother Banking", from American Policy Center.

Cases

Administrative and Trial Level

• GDF Realty & Parke Properties v. Babbitt & Clark — Challenge to the authority of the federal government to restrict land use and enforce the Endangered Species Act.
• Seguin v. Kubala, et. al. — Action for abatement of a public nuisance.

Federal Appeal Courts

• Freeman v. Dallas, 97-10907, 5th Cir. — After winning damages against City of Dallas in trial for demolition of a building deemed a nuisance, on appeal it was decided that search warrant not needed, but reasonableness of of the action leaves open an appeal to the Supreme Court under the takings clause.

U.S. Supreme Court

• Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967) — Building inspector must obtain warrant to inspect building if owner does not consent to it.
• Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21 (1991) — State officers may be held personally liable for damages based upon actions taken in their official capacities.
• Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56 (1992) — State or local officials who stand by or protect an unlawful eviction or seizure are liable for damages under 42 USC 1983.
• Bennis v. Michigan, 517 U.S. 1163 (1996) — Property used in a crime may be forfeited even though partly or wholly owned by an innocent third party.
• Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, Docket 99-2047 (Decided Jun. 28, 2001) — A state land-use regulation may present standing to a subsequent owner for compensation under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.