John Whitehead

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

We’re All in This Together: A Case for Not Giving Up on the American Dream

America has been a warring nation—a military empire intent on occupation and conquest—for so long that perhaps we, the citizens of this warring nation, have forgotten what it means to live in peace, with the world and one another.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
American Dream Feature photo

Listen: we don’t have to agree about everything. We don’t even have to agree about most things. We don’t have to love each other. We don’t even have to like each other. And we certainly don’t need to think alike or dress alike or worship alike or vote alike or love alike. But if this experiment in freedom is to succeed—and there are some days the

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Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: The FBI’s Diabolical Plan To Create A Nation Of Suspects

Get ready, folks, because the government— helped along by Congress, President Trump, the courts, and local police agencies — is embarking on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
DNA evidence

As more and more data flows from your body and brain to the smart machines via the biometric sensors, it will become easy for corporations and government agencies to know you, manipulate you, and make decisions on your behalf. Even more importantly, they could decipher the deep mechanisms of all bodies and brains, and thereby gain the power to

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A Badge of Shame: The Government’s War on America’s Military Veterans

The government’s efforts to wage war on veterans, especially those who speak out against government wrongdoing, is downright appalling.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Veterans Day New York

Not all heroes wear the uniform of war. In the United States, however, we take particular pride in recognizing as heroes those who have served in the military. Yet while we honor our veterans with holidays, parades, discounts at retail stores and restaurants, and endless political rhetoric about their sacrifice and bravery, we do a pitiful job

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Empire of Lies: Are ‘We the People’ Useful Idiots in the Digital Age?

While we claim to value freedom, privacy, individuality, equality, diversity, accountability, and government transparency, our actions and those of our government rulers contradict these much-vaunted principles at every turn.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
social media

Back in the heyday of the old Soviet Union, a phrase evolved to describe gullible western intellectuals who came to visit Russia and failed to notice the human and other costs of building a communist utopia. The phrase was “useful idiots” and it applied to a good many people who should have known better. I now propose a new, analogous term more

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Bullies Win and Freedom Suffers When We Can’t Agree to Disagree

As America has become ever more polarized, and those polarized factions have become more militant and less inclined to listen to—or even allow for the existence of—other viewpoints, we are fast becoming a nation of people who just can’t get along.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Counter-protesters prepare to clash with Patriot Prayer protesters during a rally in Portland, Ore., Aug. 4, 2018. Small scuffles broke out Saturday as police in Portland, Oregon, deployed "flash bang" devices and other means to disperse hundreds of right-wing and self-described anti-fascist protesters. John Rudoff | AP

What a mess. As America has become ever more polarized, and those polarized factions have become more militant and less inclined to listen to—or even allow for the existence of—other viewpoints, we are fast becoming a nation of people who just can’t get along. Here’s the thing: if Americans don’t learn how to get along—at the very least,

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The Constitution Is Not Neutral: Courts of Justice Should Not Act Like Courts of Order

As the events of recent years have made clear, neither the president, nor the legislatures, nor the courts will save us from the police state that holds us in its clutches.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
A child stands next to a protester representing the Statue of Liberty Trump's Muslim ban on June 26, 2018, in New York. Civil rights organizations, expressed outrage and disappointment at the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to uphold President Donald Trump's ban. Andres Kudacki | AP

For those still deluded enough to believe they’re living the American dream—where the government represents the people, where the people are equal in the eyes of the law, where the courts are arbiters of justice, where the police are keepers of the peace, and where the law is applied equally as a means of protecting the rights of the people—it’s

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Someone Tell Trump: There Is No ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card for Presidents

“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.“
— Richard Nixon

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
President Donald Trump sings the national anthem during a "Celebration of America" event at the White House, Tuesday, June 5, 2018, in Washington, in lieu of a Super Bowl celebration for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles that he canceled. Evan Vucci | AP

Someone needs to alert Donald Trump: there is no “Get Out of Jail Free” card just for being president. According to Trump’s Twitter feed, he believes that he has an absolute right to pardon himself of any crimes for which he might be charged while serving in office. He’s not alone in this imperial belief. Two of Trump’s lawyers have

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