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Why John W. Whitehead Should Be U.S. Homeland Security Director

Mostly everyone in America has a sinking feeling that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has gone way too far in trampling the civil liberties of average citizens, further augmenting and increasing the Police State already stamped on the books with then President Bill Clinton and then Senator Joseph Biden’s Community Oriented Policing (“COPS”).

COPS program was enacted as part of their draconian Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the “Clinton Crime Bill” or “VCCLEA”) which led to the mass incarceration of 1/3 of all blacks, 1/6 of all latinos, and 1/10 of all whites since 1994, resulting in 70 million Americans with criminal records (1 out of every 3 adults), greater than the population of France.

So there is a dire need for an individual who has made a living studying and critiquing the American Police State in order to correct and re-calibrate it, if not completely dismantle and replace it – sort of like President-Elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Tom Price as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (“DHHS”), an avowed critic of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) in order to at the very least, iron out and fix the myriad problems with the program. Or we can even point to Donald Trump’s appointment of Jeff Miller, retired chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, to run Veterans Affairs, who is also a fierce critic of that agency.

Therefore it would make perfect sense to consider Mr Whitehead (constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute) whose seminal book “Battlefield America: The War On The American People” is an extraordinary treatise, in-depth study, and detailed analysis of just what went wrong with the hasty enactment of the DHS after the suspicious circumstances of September 11, 2001.

This book was a follow up to his award-winning book “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State” which also set out the problems facing America due to the over-reaching and increasing militant style force that has become the American Police State.

According to Amazon Books, John W. Whitehead “paints a terrifying portrait of a nation at war with itself and which is on the verge of undermining the basic freedoms guaranteed to the citizenry in the Constitution. Indeed, police have been transformed into extensions of the military, towns and cities have become battlefields, and the American people have been turned into enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

Yet this police state did not come about overnight. As Whitehead notes, this shift into totalitarianism cannot be traced back to a single individual or event. Rather, the evolution has been so subtle that most American citizens were hardly even aware of it taking place (like the ‘boiling frog’ analogy). Yet little by little, police authority expanded, one weapon after another was added to the police arsenal, and one exception after another was made to the standards that have historically restrained police authority. Add to this mix the merger of Internet megacorporations with government intelligence agencies, and you have the making of an electronic concentration camp that not only sees the citizenry as databits but will attempt to control every aspect of their lives. And if someone dares to step out of line, they will most likely find an armed SWAT team at their door.”

John Whitehead describes the predicament facing America in the following manner:

“A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.” — John Salter

“We have entered into a particularly dismal chapter in the American narrative, one that shifts us from a swashbuckling tale of adventure into a bone-chilling horror story…‘We the people’ have now come full circle, from being held captive by the British police state to being held captive by the American police state. In between, we have charted a course from revolutionaries fighting for our independence and a free people establishing a new nation to pioneers and explorers, braving the wilderness and expanding into new territories…Where we went wrong, however, was in allowing ourselves to become enthralled with and then held hostage by a military empire in bondage to a corporate state (the very definition of fascism). No longer would America hold the moral high ground as a champion of freedom and human rights. Instead, in the pursuit of profit, our overlords succumbed to greed, took pleasure in inflicting pain, exported torture, and imported the machinery of war, transforming the American landscape into a battlefield, complete with military personnel, tactics and weaponry…To our dismay, we now find ourselves scrambling for a foothold as our once rock-solid constitutional foundation crumbles beneath us. And no longer can we rely on the president, Congress, the courts, or the police to protect us from wrongdoing…Indeed, they have come to embody all that is wrong with America…“We the people” are being hijacked on the highway by government agents with little knowledge of or regard for the Constitution, who are hyped up on the power of their badge, outfitted for war, eager for combat, and taking a joy ride—on taxpayer time and money—in a military tank that has no business being on American soil…Rest assured, unless we slam on the brakes, this runaway tank will soon be charting a new course through terrain that bears no resemblance to land of our forefathers, where freedom meant more than just the freedom to exist and consume what the corporate powers dish out.”

The Rutherford Institute is a non-profit organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia and dedicated to the defense of civil liberties and human rights.

The organization was founded in 1982 by John W. Whitehead, who continued to be its president as of 2015, and offers free legal services to those who have had their rights threatened or violated, and has a network of affiliate attorneys across the United States and funds its efforts through donations.

In addition to its offer of legal services, the organization offers free educational materials for those interested in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Rutherford Institute also publishes a weekly commentary by Whitehead which is published in hundreds of newspapers and web publications, including The Huffington Post and LewRockwell.com.

The institute has been described as “a more conservative American Civil Liberties Union” (“ACLU”).

John Whitehead has been described by jazz historian and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff as “this nation’s Paul Revere of protecting civil liberties.”

The Rutherford Institute was named after Samuel Rutherford, a 17th-century theologian who wrote a book, “Lex, Rex,” which challenged the concept of the divine right of kings.

When the Rutherford Institute was founded, conservative Protestants in the United States were reconsidering their role in American political and legal life, perceiving that the federal government was intent on encroaching on Americans’ religious liberties.

Organizations such as the Rutherford Institute pursued matters of religious liberties in the courts, and the Rutherford Institute became the model for groups such as the National Legal Foundation, the Liberty Counsel, and the American Center for Law and Justice.

So there is absolutely no question that President-Elect Donald Trump should either appoint John W. Whitehead as DHS Director, or regularly consult with him on a rigorous basis, in order to help steer the ship of state known as the United States of America back to calmer, smoother constitutional waters.

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