Episode 163: Challenging Leviathan with Mark Chenoweth and Jenin Younes

In this episode, we're talking again about the coercive power of the Administrative State and its serious threat to our constitutional freedoms. No other development in contemporary American law denies more rights to more Americans. Joining me to discuss is Mark Chenoweth, Executive Director, and Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) a public interest litigation and pro bono advocacy law firm. NCLA represents both plaintiffs and defendants engaged with administrative state actions to make sure that their civil liberties are not being violated. Although Americans still enjoy the shell of their Republic, the administrative state has brought about exactly the sort of government that the Constitution was designed to prevent. "The kinds of protections that you would expect to have, if say a prosecutor from the Department of Justice were going after you in a federal district court, those same protections don't exist if it's a federal agency going after you in an administrative adjudication." "We're looking for cases where we can change the law," explains Mark. For example: Challenging Covid-19 regulations and orders imposed by executive decree. The NCLA class action suit for naturally immune federal employees against Covid vaccine mandates. When NASDAQ attacks! The problem with mandated diversity quotas for corporate boards. Is this the SEC's job? It's vital that many more Americans recognize the administrative state's unique threat to civil liberties. "If the government can get people in the habit of just doing what they're told and controlling them through administrative actions, then that makes it easier to accomplish whatever socio-political objectives that the government may have." Thomas Hobbes titled his book on politics Leviathan after the Bible's monstrous sea creature.  Seems a pretty apt metaphor for what we're up against today.