The Battle For Brooklyn, a documentary about one man’s fight to stop a private developer from using eminent domain to take his home, recently opened in select theaters in New York City after a successful film-festival run.

In 2003, billionaire real estate developer and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner decided to move the team to Brooklyn, with the intention of building an arena, an affordable housing project, and bringing desperately needed jobs to the borough of Brooklyn. Ratner’s friend and fellow billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, enthusiastically put the weight of top-down government planning behind the project. That included using the city government’s extensive powers of eminent domain, despite the fact eminent domain is supposed to be used only in cases where development is for public uses such as schools and roads. And despite the fact that the construction of what became known as the “Atlantic Yards” project would displace many thriving businesses and homes.

Graphic designer Daniel Goldstein fought for nearly seven years to keep his home out of the hands of Ratner’s company, Forest City Ratner. Goldstein’s quixotic struggle is the centerpiece of The Battle For Brooklyn.

Reason.tv sat down with co-directors Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley to discuss eminent domain abuse and political perceptions of their film. Galinsky and Hawley insist their film is not a polemic, but rather an all-too-common story of a single person fighting an injustice against figures whose power and influence drawf his own.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. About 4.40 minutes.

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.

Related video: Billionaires vs. Brooklyn’s Best Bar: Eminent Domain Abuse and the Atlantic Yards Project.

From KMSP Minneapolis:

Your home is supposed to be your castle. That is, until the government needs to buy it for a road project. So, what’s the fair price for your property when it comes to eminent domain? Maybe less than you think.

In a state where thousands of properties have been threatened and continue to be threatened, California is in desperate need of meaningful eminent domain reform that will respect the rights and property of its residents. The preceding legal overview in California demonstrates just how difficult it is for private property owners to defend themselves against California’s redevelopment machine, which siphons billions and billions of dollars into a closed economic system that benefits private parties and hurts not only property owners, but all taxpayers as well.

You really have to see this one to believe it:

The video above was just released by the Institute for Justice. It begins with an elderly woman lamenting:

When my son came back from Kuwait he couldn’t believe it.  He said, “Mom, what’s going on?” And I said, well they want to get rid of us and they’re finally doing it.  He was upset.  He said, “I’m sorry, I’m halfway around the world to help other people and I can’t even help my own mom keep her own home.”

For the past ten years, township officials in Mount Holly have been destroying a close-knit community called the Gardens.  They’ve been recklessly bulldozing select individual row-houses — even when they are attached to occupied homes — to make way for fancier homes for richer people.  The current owners have never been offered a place in the new redevelopment, or enough money to buy comparable home nearby.

A new Institute for Justice study, available here, shows that this redevelopment project may result in a loss of one million dollars every year, one tenth of the township’s budget.

Despite these terrible conditions, the community never gave up hope.  They continued to fight against all odds for their cherished neighborhood.   And on Wednesday, a federal court came to their defense.

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Carla Main wrote an outstanding book called Bulldozed.  A veteran journalist, she brought to life a heart-wrenching, true-life tale of eminent domain abuse in a Texas fishing town.  She told the truth.  And for that, she’s being sued.

Today, Carla is fighting back.

This morning, Carla asked a Texas appeals court to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against here by a developer involved in the Texas case.

Some background:

The Texas developer behind this abuse project is H. Walker Royall.  As the video makes clear, millions of taxpayer dollars later, the project is now an epic debacle.

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55 years ago, Rosa Parks helped launch the modern civil rights movement.

Today, the government is bulldozing her old neighborhood.  Here’s the real kicker:  The homeowners are forced to pay the cost of demolition.

Nobel prize-winning libertarian economist F.A. Hayek famously wrote that “the great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law.”  There is no better example of this fundamental struggle than Rosa Parks, known today as The Mother of the Freedom Movement.

She refused to be treated as a second-class citizen.  But her hometown of Montgomery, Ala., segregated blacks on public transits.  Minorities were forced to sit in the back, forced to give up their seats to whites, and sometimes were left standing on the side of the road after paying their fare.  Rosa stood up to the Big Government Bullies and said enough is enough.  Her demand for equality before the law forever transformed America.

Rosa once said:

I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free . . . so other people would be also free.

Indeed, she made the world a better place.  So how despicable is it that today officials in her old hometown are forcing people to give up their homes?  The government is tearing down houses against the property owners’ will and then sticking them with the bill.

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You’ve probably heard about eminent domain abuse.  That’s where the government takes your land and hands it over to another private party….one that is more politically connected.

But you may not have heard about civil forfeiture.  And yet, today, it could very well be the most egregious abuse of private property rights in America.

We all know that one of the many beautiful things about the United States is that citizens are innocent until proven guilty.  But civil forfeiture turns that fundamental principle on its head.

This sounds bizarre, but with civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.

Consider the case of Margaret Davis.

As a 77-year-old woman living alone with multiple medical problems, Margaret left her Pennsylvania home unlocked so her neighbors could regularly check on her.  One day while the police were chasing alleged drug dealers through her neighborhood, they all ran through Margaret’s house.  The dealers dropped some of their stash on Margaret’s floor, in plain sight.

Instead of apologizing to Margaret for the traumatic experience, the government seized her house.

Under civil forfeiture laws, Margaret’s property—her house—was guilty until she could prove it innocent to get it back.  And that’s not all.  As it turns out, most state and federal laws allow the government to keep the property they take through civil forfeiture.  So authorities have a big incentive to pursue property over justice.

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There’s a new site to add to your blogroll:  Congress Shall Make No Law.

The site, which has the address makenolaw.org, empowers grassroots activists from around the country that are standing up and saying no to unconstitutional attacks on free speech coming in the guise of campaign finance reform.  The site explains all the latest news and events going on in this increasingly complex area of law.  All of the writers are First Amendment attorneys and experts at the Institute for Justice (IJ)—the libertarian law firm dedicated to striking down campaign finance laws in state and federal courts.

The unfortunate reality is this:  Campaign finance laws are a way to regulate speech and silence speakers.  And they have seriously negative impacts on everyday Americans.

Consider Karen Sampson of Parker North, Colorado:

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No tragedy is beyond exploitation by the left.  When census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead and it was leaked that “Fed” was scrawled across his chest, the entirety of the conservative and Tea Party movements were immediately convicted by the online left.  They were wrong, and we now know that Sparkman committed suicide.  Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the left also tried to hang Joseph Stack around the neck of the Tea Party.  Again they failed.

They are now doing the same song and dance with Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell.  Despite the fact that he’s a registered Democrat and 9/11 Truther, the left and their media sycophants are stretching to tie him to the Tea Party movement, though the best that they can honestly come up with is that he distrusted government.

That’s what it really boils down to.  At the end of the day, they know none of these guys will hold up as right-wingers.  Their real objective is simply to shame anyone who thinks government should be smaller, rather than bigger.  Anyone who thinks that the IRS is often used to bully Americans isn’t simply wrong, you see, but is also dangerous.  Anyone who thinks that a limited government would better promote prosperity and ensure individual liberty isn’t merely antiquated, but also a potential shooter of government employees.

They are essentially trying to use the acts of these lone nutjobs – which were despicable in every way – to make big government into the victim. The magnitude of this Orwellian endeavor is so unbelievable that it’s hard to describe in a manner that doesn’t sound over-the-top.  It’s better just to remind you of some of big government’s greatest hits.

The 2005 Kelo decision ruled that government can take property from one private person or group and give it to another in order to raise tax revenues. Such abuse didn’t just start with Kelo, however.  In the 4 year period from 1998 to 2002, over 10,000 properties faced at least the threat of condemnation in order to benefit another private party, according to a report by the Institute for Justice.  These are individuals being threatened and bullied by a massive government to give up their fundamental human right to administer their lawfully owned property as they see fit.

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Last month, New York’s highest court heard oral arguments in the case of Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation. At issue was the state’s controversial seizure of private property on behalf of a 22-acre development project known as the Atlantic Yards. Situated in central Brooklyn, this taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle was the brainchild of real estate tycoon and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner, who wants to build an “urban utopia” complete with more than a dozen office and apartment towers, a 180-room hotel, and a fancy new basketball arena for Ratner’s Nets to call home.

Real Estate Tycoon Bruce Ratner and ACORN's Bertha Lewis

To get his way, Ratner turned to his buddies in big government, specifically the Empire State Development Corporation, a controversial state agency with the power to bypass zoning laws and seize private property via eminent domain. In other words, this is a classic case of eminent domain abuse. Ratner isn’t building a bridge or a tunnel or any other legitimate public project that might justify the forceful taking of private property by the state. He wants to build a basketball arena, sell tickets to the games (not to mention broadcast rights, concessions, and luxury boxes), and collect a big fat profit.

So what in the world is ACORN, a self-described champion of “social and economic justice” and “low- and moderate-income people” doing in bed with a shady corporate powerbroker like Bruce Ratner? Let’s follow the money.

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It is a Friday and President Obama is abroad.  What better time for the President and the Department of Justice to announce that 9/11 coordinator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his fellow terrorists will be tried in a civilian court in New York City?

Yesterday, I wrote about the curious connection that major Obama and ACORN supporter Bruce Ratner has to the Department of Justice – the very department that refuses to initiate a criminal trial of ACORN. It just so happens that Bruce Ratner’s brother, Michael Ratner, shares the terrorist coddling sympathies of Attorney General Eric Holder.  As Michelle Malkin documents, Holder not only pushed for the pardoning of actual terrorists in his last stint at DOJ, but he was also a senior partner at a law firm representing detainees at Guantanamo. While Michael Ratner has not represented Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he did represent a handful of terrorists and won them the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts under habeas corpus. This is just one of many legal “victories” that have paved the way for folks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be tried in civilian court on our soil.

This particular example highlights the underlying notion that terrorists should be privy to the same rights as United States citizens. In this instance, President Obama did in fact exercise his discretion (if you can call it that) by allowing the trial to take place in civilian court.  Attorney Brian Levi serves as the Director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University.  As Levi noted today, “As a legal matter President Obama could very well also have tried these five detainees before military tribunals, as five others are…”

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