2011: A Civil Liberties Year in Review

John W. Whitehead January 10th, 2012

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It was a year of populist uprisings, economic downturns, political assassinations, and one scandal after another. But as I point out in this week’s vodcast, on the civil liberties front, things were particularly grim.

(If you're on the front page of the site, click the title of this post to see the video player.)

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted … (Read More)

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Getting After the Devil: Obama and Civil Liberties

John W. Whitehead May 25th, 2010

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Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. –C.S. Lewis

There is an unease in the air, a sense that a shift is taking place in the world. The signs are all around us: weapons of mass destruction, continual threats of terrorism, an emerging global police state, and a growing but over-extended military empire that is wreaking havoc on the American economy. All the while, troops are being deployed on Ame … (Read More)

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Are You Brainwashed? Seven Principles for Free Government

John W. Whitehead February 8th, 2010

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Brainwashed in our childhood

Brainwashed by the school…

Brainwashing us in Washington…

Brainwashed by the media…

Brainwashed by computer

Brainwashed by mobile phones

Brainwashed by the satellite

Brainwashed to the bone.

–George Harrison, "Brainwashed"

Precisely because Americans are easily distracted–because, as study after study shows, they are clueless about their rights–and because the nation's schools have cea … (Read More)

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Obama and the Global Police: More Friendly Fascism?

John W. Whitehead January 14th, 2010

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"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."– James Madison

Over the course of his first year in office, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a skillful and savvy politician, saying the things Americans want to hear while stealthily and inexorably moving forward the government's agenda of centralized power. For example, in one breath, Obama pays lip service to the need for great … (Read More)

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Chinese Totalitarianism, American-Style

John W. Whitehead August 5th, 2008

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Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. Thomas Jefferson

China is becoming more like us in very visible ways (Starbucks, Hooters, cellphones that are cooler than ours), observed Naomi Klein in Rolling Stone in May 2008, and we are becoming more like China in less visible ones (torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, though not nearly on the Chinese scale … (Read More)

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Our Schools Are Graveyards for Freedom

John W. Whitehead December 13th, 2007

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"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."–Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

My granddaughter is seven months old. Intent on discovering as much as she can about the world around her, she is blissfully unaware of the fact that she is under constant surveillance. Between her doting parents, her equally doting grandparents and a baby monitor that is always turned on and tuned … (Read More)

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