In a major rebuke of presidential power, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that President Trump cannot impose billions of dollars in tariffs on the American people by declaring a national emergency. At stake was a key constitutional question: Who has the power to tax — Congress or the president?

Two back-to-back rulings have rebuffed efforts by the Trump administration to retaliate against military veterans for exercising their First Amendment rights and reaffirming that military service members’ oath is to the Constitution.

If you carried a cell phone past the wrong street corner at the wrong moment, police could already have your movements, your digital trail, and your identity—without your even having committed a crime. That is the reality of geofence warrants, a powerful surveillance tool whose use by police is now being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a decision that makes it easier for political candidates to challenge election-related harms while leaving ordinary Americans without similar recourse, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidates may challenge state laws governing the counting of votes in their own races but declined to base that on broader standing principles applicable for all citizens harmed by unlawful government action.

One year after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to warrantless home searches by police, ICE is now claiming the power to forcibly enter homes without a judge’s warrant. A newly revealed ICE memo—and real-world raids targeting even U.S. citizens—signal a dangerous escalation in Constitution-free policing that threatens the Fourth Amendment rights of every homeowner.

The Rutherford Institute is raising the alarm over efforts by the Trump Administration to retaliate against military veterans for exercising their free speech rights and reaffirming their oath to protect and defend the Constitution. 

Pushing back on President Trump’s claim that “I have the right to do anything I want to do,” the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to lift a lower court order preventing the President from deploying National Guard troops against civilians in Chicago, allowing the block on the deployment to remain in place.

The Rutherford Institute's 2025 Annual Report documents an unprecedented assault by the government on constitutional freedoms—and how TRI fought back in the courts, in Congress, and in the public square.

As the Trump administration proclaims that it has “saved Christmas,” The Rutherford Institute is warning that the federal government is doing the opposite—weaponizing the holiday as a propaganda tool to promote fear, punishment, and mass deportation, in direct contradiction to the core values Christmas is meant to represent.

In a ruling that leaves thousands of military servicemembers and their families without a path to justice, the Supreme Court has allowed a two-tiered system to stand—one that bars servicemembers from suing the government for non-combat injuries, even when a civilian could bring the very same claim.

In yet another ruling that contributes to the steady normalization of police overreach, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to rein in police K-9 drug-sniff searches during traffic stops.

President Trump’s claim that he can “do anything I want” faces a constitutional challenge: civil liberties groups urge the Supreme Court to rein in the president’s repeated efforts to create a de facto standing army and block his efforts to deploy National Guard troops against civilians in Chicago.

At a time when government officials increasingly insulate themselves from public scrutiny and the press—restricting access to the White House press secretary’s office, controlling journalists’ reporting and movements at the Pentagon, and replacing open town halls with electronic screenings—the U.S. Supreme Court has delivered another setback to transparency. By refusing to hear a challenge to an Oregon law criminalizing the act of recording one’s own conversations without notifying all parties, the Supreme Court has made it even harder for journalists, whistleblowers, and ordinary citizens to hold the powerful accountable.

Following reports that “a factual discrepancy” existed in court filings used to justify President Trump’s use of military troops against civilian protesters, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a ruling granting the president sweeping discretion to federalize and deploy the National Guard in response to demonstrations at an ICE facility in Portland.

The Rutherford Institute has joined a national coalition of civil liberties organizations calling on the courts to stop President Trump’s unconstitutional deployment of National Guard troops against civilians in Portland.

Civil liberties groups are warning that the Trump administration’s attempt to condition federal funding on ideological compliance amounts to “ideological extortion” and a grave threat to academic freedom.

A powerful coalition of civil liberties organizations—including The Rutherford Institute, FIRE, PEN America, and others—is fighting back against the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest, detain, and deport student activists for speaking out against the war in Gaza. The coalition warns that targeting lawful residents like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk for protected speech is unconstitutional retaliation and threatens freedom of expression for everyone.

John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney, author, and founder of The Rutherford Institute, is sharing his lifelong engagement with freedom, technology, and human dignity with the arts community in a new gallery exhibit featuring his recent series, Freedom Amputated. Known nationally for his legal advocacy and writings on civil liberties, Whitehead brings the same urgency and vision to his paintings. His recent series confronts viewers with haunting, abstract visions of dehumanization in an age of surveillance and technological control.

The Founders warned against standing armies on American soil. They feared the military would be used not to defend the people, but to control them. Today, those warnings ring true. A coalition of civil liberties groups have filed a First Amendment challenge to Trump’s National Guard deployment against protesters.

A federal court has struck down a sweeping attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize billions in research funding, reaffirming that the government cannot enforce ideological conformity through financial coercion.