My wife bought me a book not to long ago called "The Supremes' Greatest Hits." This book looks at 34 Supreme Court cases that affects we the people. One of the cases that was discussed was Monroe v. Pape.
To Summarize, thirteen Chicago police officers stormed the plantiff's home, with him standing naked in the living room, the police began ransacking his home, without a search warrant, then took him to jail. The Chicago police department was looking for evidence from a 2 day old murder. Monroe wasn't allowed to contact an attorney and was eventually released from custody after being held for ten hours. Oh and Monroe, he was African American.
Monroe and his attorney decided that they would sue the city of Chicago for damages. Monroe's attorney used a post Civil War law commonly referred to as The Klu Klux Klan act of 1871 because they felt that Moroe wouldn't receive a fair trial because the judges would favor their own over Monroe. In the law is a provision called Section 1983:
Section 1983. Civil action for deprivation of rights
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the
District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any
citizen of the United States or other person within the
jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges,
or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable
to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other
proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought
against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such
officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted
unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was
unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress
applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be
considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
Section 1983
Monroe won his case before the Supreme Court. This allowed the common people to sue our state and local governments for violating our civil rights.
In 1971, a Supreme Court case Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics ruled that we the people could sue the federal government for violating our civil rights.
With this administrations continual push in removing our basic rights, maybe we should explore some means to an end to stop the circus that is running OUR country for the last 6 years.