FIRST ON FOX: The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed a lawsuit against Illinois officials Tuesday over the state’s Firearm Owners Identification Act, also known as the FOID Card Act, a state law that requires Illinois residents to apply for and carry an identification card at all times in order to possess any firearm or ammunition. 

The civil complaint, which Fox News Digital obtained exclusively, challenges the law as unconstitutional, arguing it «entirely deprives everyone of the right to keep and bear arms – including the basic right to possess a firearm for self-defense in the home – unless and until they seek and receive the State’s permission.» 

NCLA is challenging the law’s constitutionality, contending that FOID violates both the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, particularly the latter amendment’s Due Process Clause. 

NCLA is suing Illinois State Police Director Brendan F. Kelly, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, seeking injunctive relief on behalf of three plaintiffs.

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Two of the plaintiffs, Christopher Laurent and Kim Dalton, would like to obtain firearms for self-defense but haven’t done so because they «refuse to submit to the state’s unconstitutional procedure, and are unwilling to subject themselves to criminal prosecution by violating the law,» the complaint reads. 

The other, Justin Tucker, did obtain a FOID card but doesn’t want to have to continue to renew it or to carry it with him at all times, which state law requires if one wants to retain their right to bear arms in Illinois.

«The police can approach you and demand you ‘show your papers’ to prove you’re allowed to exercise this right, otherwise, you are committing a crime,» NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel Jacob Huebert, the lead attorney on the lawsuit, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.

«Some people may have an urgent need to obtain a firearm for self-defense in their home because of a threat they face, yet they absolutely cannot do that. They have to file the application, go through the process, and wait as long as the state wants to take,» Huebert explained. 

GUN RIGHTS ON PRIVATE PROPERTY DEBATED AT SUPREME COURT

«At every step of the way, the burden of proof is on the citizen to be allowed to exercise their rights. You go through the first round, and if they deny you, you can do an internal appeal within the Illinois State Police, which has a review board. If you lose at all those stages, you can go to court, but even then, the burden of proof remains on you to show that you’re entitled to exercise your Second Amendment rights,» he continued. 

An assortment of semiautomatic rifles are on display for sale at R Guns on April 29, 2023, in Carpentersville, Illinois. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

«In our view, that is the exact opposite of how constitutional rights are supposed to work. A right means that you are presumed allowed to do something unless the government has a sufficiently good reason to stop you. Normally, if the government wants to disarm a particular person, they have to go to court, get a restraining order, and present evidence showing why that person shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun. But in Illinois, everybody is treated as guilty until they prove themselves innocent,» he told Fox News Digital.

DOJ PROMISES ‘A LOT MORE ACTION’ ON GUN RIGHTS WITH NEW SECOND AMENDMENT ENFORCEMENT SECTION

Illinois enacted the FOID law in 1967, and the constitutional legitimacy of the statute has been challenged multiple times in the decades since. In the 2020 decision People v. Vivian Brown, an Illinois state trial court ruled the law unconstitutional. However, state trial court decisions apply only to individual plaintiffs and don’t serve as precedent. 

A customer inspects a 9mm handgun at Rink’s Gun and Sport in the Chicago suburb of Lockport, Illinois, on June 26, 2008. (REUTERS/Frank Polich/Files)

By filing its suit in federal district court in Chicago, NCLA is seeking to force the court to set a precedent that would in effect nullify the law, Huebert explained.

«Once the federal courts weigh in, that will be the definitive law,» he told Fox News Digital. «If a federal court orders the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Attorney General, and the Cook County State’s Attorney not to enforce this law anymore, then they can no longer enforce it,» Huebert said. 

Illinois ranks as the state with the second-strongest gun laws on the books behind California, according to a 2026 ranking composed by Everytown For Gun Safety. Despite the stringency, however, Illinois ranks 13th in the nation in gun homicides, averaging 8.2 deaths per 100,000 residents on an age-adjusted basis, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

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Fox News Digital contacted the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for comment on the lawsuit.

En el vasto archipiélago de la literatura del siglo XX, pocos autores consiguieron cartografiar la alienación contemporánea con la precisión quirúrgica de Fernando Pessoa. Entre la marea de fragmentos que componen su obra cumbre, Libro del desasosiego, late una advertencia que funciona como el núcleo ético y estético de su pensamiento: “Sentir hoy lo mismo que ayer no es sentir —es recordar hoy lo que ayer se sintió, ser hoy el cadáver vivo de lo que ayer fue vida perdida”.

Lejos de ser un mero aforismo melancólico, esta frase condensa la violenta lucidez de un escritor que se negó a habitar una identidad fija. Para Pessoa, el verdadero peligro de la existencia no reside en el sufrimiento o en la vacuidad, sino en la automatización del alma. Replicar una emoción pasada por pura inercia es montar un museo de nostalgias, transformarse en el propio sepulturero de la experiencia. Para entender dónde nace esta premisa, es necesario viajar a la Lisboa de las primeras décadas del siglo pasado.

Fernando Pessoa llevó una doble vida impecable: de día, un gris empleado de comercio que redactaba cartas comerciales en inglés y francés; de noche, un demiurgo que alteraba el rumbo de la literatura universal desde la soledad de su habitación alquilada. Tras su muerte en 1935, se halló un baúl de madera con más de 25.000 fragmentos inéditos. De ese caos manuscrito brotó, de manera póstuma en 1982, el Libro del desasosiego, un híbrido de prosa poética, divagaciones metafísicas y crónicas urbanas.

La obra fue firmada por Bernardo Soares, un ayudante de tenedor de libros en la Baixa lisboeta, a quien Pessoa definió no como un heterónimo pleno —como el neopagano Alberto Caeiro, el clasicista Ricardo Reis o el vanguardista Álvaro de Campos—, sino como un “semiheterónimo”: una mutilación de su propia personalidad. Soares escribe desde el tedio absoluto, pero es un tedio hiperlúcido. En ese entorno asfixiante de oficinas oscuras y calles lluviosas, el rechazo a la repetición emocional es su resistencia.

La frase en cuestión abre una ventana directa hacia el concepto fundamental del autor: la multiplicidad del yo. Si “vivir es ser otro”, como afirma el mismo fragmento, la fijeza emocional es sinónimo de muerte espiritual. Pessoa propone una suerte de “revirginidad perpetua de la emoción”. Cada amanecer exige borrar el cuadro afectivo del día anterior para entregarse a la impresión pura del presente, libre de la contaminación del recuerdo. Esta idea dialoga con las vanguardias de su tiempo y anticipa el existencialismo.

Décadas antes de que Jean-Paul Sartre publicara su célebre novela La náusea, el Bernardo Soares de Pessoa ya describía esa misma repulsión metafísica ante lo previsible. Hoy en día, el Libro del desasosiego comparte el olimpo de las obras fundamentales de la modernidad junto a En busca del tiempo perdido de Marcel Proust o el Ulises de James Joyce. Sin embargo, a diferencia de estos últimos, el texto de Pessoa carece de arquitectura final; es un universo abierto e infinitamente maleable.

Su importancia radica en haberle dado voz al hombre fragmentado, aquel que se observa a sí mismo vivir en lugar de simplemente vivir. La vigencia de su advertencia sobre la memoria afectiva resuena con fuerza en una contemporaneidad obsesionada con el archivo constante y la repetición de estímulos. Pessoa, a través de su humilde oficinista, nos sigue exigiendo el coraje de la renovación: abandonar el cómodo fantasma de lo que fuimos ayer para salvaguardar la violenta y legítima chispa del presente.

¿Quién es Fernando Pessoa?

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) fue una de las figuras más enigmáticas y geniales de la literatura universal. Nacido en Lisboa, pasó gran parte de su infancia en Sudáfrica debido al nuevo matrimonio de su madre con un cónsul, lo que le permitió dominar el inglés a la perfección y asimilar la tradición literaria anglosajona. Al regresar a Portugal en 1905, adoptó una existencia exteriormente anodina y rutinaria en su ciudad natal: traductor de correspondencia comercial, aunque partícipe en las vanguardias locales.

Aunque en vida solo llegó a publicar un libro en portugués, el poema épico-lírico Mensaje en 1934, además de algunos folletos de poesía en inglés, su producción subterránea fue monumental y abarcó miles de textos manuscritos que guardaba celosamente. Víctima de una cirrosis hepática, falleció en Lisboa a los 47 años en la más absoluta discreción. Tras su muerte, el descubrimiento de su famoso baúl de madera reveló un universo literario sin precedentes que transformó la literatura del siglo XX.

Su mayor genialidad radicó en la creación de los heterónimos: identidades poéticas completas —como Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos o Ricardo Reis— que poseían biografías, estilos literarios y filosofías propias, diferenciándose de los simples seudónimos. La publicación póstuma de sus escritos dio vida a obras fundamentales de la modernidad como el Libro del desasosiego, sus Ficciones del interludio y sus extensas Poesías completo, consolidándolo como el gran poeta de la multiplicidad.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, a «sloth» on Sunday while laying out accomplishments under President Donald Trump’s second term through a video interspersed with footage from multiple iconic movies.

«Pete Buttigieg moved like a sloth,» Duffy wrote in a post to X. «I’m moving at the speed of Trump!»

«He did nothing. He spent $80 billion on DEI and on climate change. We did more in one year than the last administration did in all four,» Duffy added.

Like other issues, such as border security, the video from Duffy highlights the Trump administration’s eagerness to use distance from former President Joe Biden as a benchmark for success.

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When approached by Fox News Digital about Duffy’s «sloth» comments, Sean Manning, a spokesperson for Buttigieg, referred reporters to a list of published accomplishments the department reported from 2021-2025. 

«Sean Duffy is looking more desperate by the day. The American people would prefer that he do his actual job instead of making up lies on social media or going on a seven-month vacation paid for by the companies he’s supposed to regulate,» Manning said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

In particular, Duffy’s video took aim at Buttigieg’s track record on trucking certification and air travel even as it touted other developments such as clearing the way for «air mobility» vehicles and investments in engineering through the Maritime Academy.

«Buttigieg spent billions of dollars trying to patch together our air traffic control system,» Trump said in one of the clips featured in the montage.

The video, which included Lightning McQueen, the fictional Pixar race car, clips from Marvel’s Iron Man and even a scene from the Terminator, highlighted the $12 billion in funding for new air traffic controllers included in Trump’s signature Big Beautiful Bill as well as 12,000 applicants that, according to the administration, had set records for interest in air safety work.

DUFFY URGES SENATE TO PASS BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’S $12.5B AIR TRAFFIC SYSTEM FIX

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy speaks during a press conference on air traffic controller pay and the government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 23, 2025. Former Secretary Pete Buttigieg appears on «The Late Show with Stephen Colbert» on March 4, 2025. (Eric Lee/Getty Images; Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty Images)

The video dovetails with announcements from Duffy last week outlining $750 million efforts to replace eight air traffic control towers with «state-of-the-art» facilities. Additionally, Duffy announced an $85.8 million investment to upgrade Federal Contract Towers at 41 airports in 24 states.

But more than improvements to the control centers, Duffy drew attention to ways the administration had bolstered licensing requirements for truckers.

«Buttigieg did not enforce the law,» Duffy said. «The wild West era of truck driver training — it’s over.»

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The video reminded viewers of efforts by the administration to withhold funding from states for lax standards in states like New York and California.

In particular, it recounted how California had removed 17,000 trucker licenses from «dangerous foreign drivers» after Duffy threatened to withhold $160 million in federal funding.

It also highlighted $73 million in withheld funds from New York after the agency found that over 50% of its non-domiciled trucking licenses were issued illegally.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg looks on as former President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., on May 8, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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Buttigieg, who served as Transportation Secretary in the Biden administration from 2021 to 2025, has been discussed as a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2028.

Before his tenure under Biden, Buttigieg himself ran for president in 2020, but eventually dropped out and endorsed Biden.