Project

"Federal" Land, Mortgage Guarantees, etc.

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Litigation

May the Federal Government own, or exercise direct authority over, land or real property not listed nor directly referenced in Article I, Section 8, Clauses 7 and 17?

Overview

The federal government asserts that it owns or holds in trust vast amounts of numerous types of land within the states. We contend that this is false in almost every case. The US Constitution lists the few and specific purposes for which the federal government may own land:

• To establish Post Offices and post Roads (I.8.7);
• not exceeding ten Miles square... the Seat of the Government of the United States (I.8.17);
• and Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of (I.8.17)
  • Forts
  • Magazines
  • Arsenals
  • dock-Yards
  • other needful Buildings.

We believe we have come into a very unique case, originating in a questionable post-forclosure land title being deeded to a quasi-federal agency (Freddie Mac), pursuant to Freddie Mac paying off a bank on an also-questionable mortgage loan guarantee, which allows us to prosecute a correction to the "federal land" argument. A determination in our favor will have impacts far beyond housing.

This case does not address federal loan guarantees; it is limited to the direct question,

• May the Federal Government own, or exercise direct authority over, land or real property not listed nor directly referenced in Article I, Section 8, Clauses 7 and 17?

Our Argument

The federal government has unconstitutionally insinuated itself into every aspect of business, individual life, and state and private property by erroneously ignoring Ninth and Tenth Amendment restrictions and overextending Article I.8.18, the "necessary and proper" or "elastic clause". This clause gives Congress power "to make all laws, which shall be necessary and proper, for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, in any department or officer thereof." It does not give Congress any additional power, nor does it extend any of the expressly granted powers the constitution does give Congress.

In matters of property, despite overwhelming rulings from the US Supreme Court, the federal government has pretended to itself various extensions of power which it has then unlawfully used to devise fictions of authority over property to which it has no actual constitutional reach.

Specifically,

• The Tenth Amendment specifically requires a "strict construction" of the constitution;
• Congress has no ability to exercise, delegate or invent a power or authority which it does not itself clearly possess by direct authority of the US constitution;
• Congress has no power to own land except as specifically given in the US constitution;
• Congress has no power to charter a corporation;
• "Freddie Mac" is a congressional fiction whose dubious validitity is not spefically questioned herein;
• "Freddie Mac", to whatever extent it may validly exist, nevertheless cannot do that which Conress may not do.

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