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].

Left, Right Or Center – The Police State Does Not Discriminate

America’s militarized police force and its brutal crackdown on protesters is being meted out to Americans across the political spectrum.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Police killings Protest Feature photo

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as

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Want To Picture The Future? Imagine A Boot Stamping On Your Face

Seemingly taking its cue from science fiction, technology has moved so fast in the short time since Minority Report premiered in 2002 that what once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Police Shooting Missouri

“The Internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we’re part of the medium. The scary thing is, we’ll lose our right to privacy. An ad will appear in the air around us,

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Coming Soon To A City Near You: The U.S. Military’s Plan To Take Over America

According to a Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. military plans to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Missouri National Guard line up behind police officers monitoring protesters in front of the Ferguson Police Department Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. Missouri's governor ordered hundreds more state militia into Ferguson on Tuesday, after a night of protests and rioting over a grand jury's decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a case that has inflamed racial tensions in the U.S.

“Our current and past strategies can no longer hold. We are facing environments that the masters of war never foresaw. We are facing a threat that requires us to redefine doctrine and the force in radically new and different ways. The future army will confront a highly sophisticated urban-centric threat that will require that urban operations

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The FBI: The Silent Terror Of The Fourth Reich

“Adolf Hitler is alive and well in the United States, and he is fast rising to power.”—Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, on the danger posed by the FBI to our civil liberties

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
A sign for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offices in Washington, DC.

Lately, there’s been a lot of rhetoric comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. The concern is that a Nazi-type regime may be rising in America. That process, however, began a long time ago. In fact, following the second World War, the U.S. government recruited Hitler’s employees, adopted his protocols, embraced his mindset about law and

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Tyranny At Standing Rock: The Government’s Divide-And-Conquer Strategy Is Working

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”— Benjamin Franklin, as quoted in The Works of Benjamin Franklin.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Protesters gather at an encampment on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016, a day after tribal leaders received a letter from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that told them the federal land would be closed to the public on Dec. 5, near Cannon Ball, N.D. The protesters said Saturday that they do not plan to leave and will continue to oppose construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. (AP photo/James MacPherson)

Divide and conquer. It’s one of the oldest military strategies in the books, and it’s proven to be the police state’s most effective weapon for maintaining the status quo. How do you conquer a nation? Distract them with football games, political circuses and Black Friday sales. Keep them focused on their differences—economic, religious,

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‘We The People’ Against Tyranny: Seven Principles For Free Government

“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.”— Former presidential adviser Bertram Gross

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Dozens of protestors demonstrating against the expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline wade in cold creek waters confronting local police, as remnants of pepper spray waft over the crowd near Cannon Ball, N.D., Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016.

As history teaches us, if the people have little or no knowledge of the basics of government and their rights, those who wield governmental power inevitably wield it excessively. After all, a citizenry can only hold its government accountable if it knows when the government oversteps its bounds. Precisely because Americans are easily

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You Can Comply And Still Die During A Police Encounter

“Police are specialists in violence. They are armed, trained, and authorized to use force. With varying degrees of subtlety, this colors their every action. Like the possibility of arrest, the threat of violence is implicit in every police encounter. Violence, as well as the law, is what they represent.”— Author Kristian Williams

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Police wearing riot gear walk toward a man with his hands raised Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. (Photo/Jeff Roberson,AP)

How do you protect yourself from flying fists, choking hands, disabling electrified darts and killing bullets? How do you defend yourself against individuals who have been indoctrinated into believing that they are superior to you, that their word is law, and that they have the power to take your life? Most of all, how can you maintain the

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