John Whitehead

SCOTUS Fails to Protect Citizens From Asset Forfeiture Delay Tactics That Let Police Keep Seized Cars & Cash
WASHINGTON, DC — In a ruling on civil forfeiture, which has been likened to a modern-day form of highway robbery, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed police to get away with using delay tactics while keeping private property…

A Nanny State Idiocracy: A Tale of Too Many Laws & Too Little Freedom
“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”—Simone Weil, French philosopher We are caught in a vicious cycle of too many laws, too…

Michigan Supreme Court Allows Government to Conduct Warrantless Drone Surveillance of Excess ‘Junk’ Cars on Couple’s Secluded Property
LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled in favor of government officials who used a drone to take aerial surveillance photographs of a couple’s private property without a search warrant in order to cite them for…

Virtual Home Invasions: We’re Not Safe from Government Peeping Toms
“The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike…

US Supreme Court Allows Case to Move Forward That Could Dissuade & Chill the Right to Organize Peaceful Political Mass Protests
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a case with far-reaching implications across the political spectrum for free speech and the right to protest, the U.S. Supreme Court is allowing a case to move forward that could hold a protest organizer…

The Steady Slide Towards Tyranny: How Freedom Dies from A to Z
“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.”—Former presidential advisor Bertram Gross The American governmental scheme is sliding ever closer towards a pervasive authoritarianism. The American people, the permanent underclass…

Rutherford Institute Threatens First Amendment Lawsuit Over Censorship of Religious Content From High School Valedictorian’s Graduation Speech
TAMPA, Fla. — The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a Florida high school valedictorian whose graduation speech was censored by school officials to alter and remove religious content. Lucas Hudson, a valedictorian of the Collegiate…

Divide & Conquer: The Government’s Propaganda of Fear & Fake News
“It is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one…

Down with Big Brother: Warrantless Surveillance Makes a Mockery of the Constitution
“Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference … The Thought Police would get him just the same … the arrests invariably happened at night … In the vast…

Rutherford Institute Defends Women’s Basketball Coach’s First Amendment Right to Religious Expression
COLUMBIA, SC — The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of the First Amendment rights of a women’s college basketball coach who has come under fire for citing God in response to a reporter’s question, posting Bible…

Oregon City Law Denounced Against Sleeping, Camping in Public as Unconstitutional Attempt to Criminalize Homelessness
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Rutherford Institute is challenging attempts by Oregon city officials in Grants Pass to prohibit sleeping and camping in public through the use of excessive fines and criminal trespass charges. In pushing back against a…

Tyranny by the Numbers: The Government Wants Your Money Any Way It Can Get It
The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it. This is what comes of those $1.2 trillion spending bills: someone’s got to foot the…

The Government Wants to Play God. What Does That Mean for Our Freedoms?
The government wants to play god. It wants the power to decide who lives or dies and whose rights are worthy of protection. Abortion may still be front and center in the power struggle between the Left and…

The Case Against Technofascism: When Big Tech Companies Censor Speech
Social media platforms censor in two primary ways. First, the platforms “remove[] posts that violate [their] terms of service or community standards.” NetChoice, LLC v. Att’y Gen. Fla., 34 F.4th 1196, 1204 (11th Cir. 2022). Second, the platforms…

Florida ‘No Go Zone’ Law Could Chill First Amendment Activity, Thwart Citizen Journalists & Embolden Police Misconduct
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Recognizing the need for the government to strike that necessary yet delicate balance between liberty and safety, The Rutherford Institute has concluded that Florida’s “no go zone” law, which would criminalize approaching or remaining within…

Rule by Criminals: When Dissidents Become Enemies of the State
“In these days of worldwide confusion, there is a dire need for men and women who will courageously do battle for truth.”— Martin Luther King Jr. When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.…

Court Fails to Hold Constables Accountable for Wrongfully Evicting Blind Man, Leaving Him Homeless During a Snowstorm
WILMINGTON, Del. —The U.S. District Court for Delaware has refused to hold government officials accountable for knowingly enforcing an eviction order against the wrong person: a blind man, who was then left homeless with his daughters during a…








