Author and civil rights attorney John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the enduring effects of the PATRIOT Act and erosion of civil liberties in the US. He also explains "Operation Vigilant Eagle," a surveillance program to keep tabs on US veterans and track what they say online.

John Whitehead appears on The Big Picture to weigh in on the looming Patriot Act renewal 18 years after it was enacted. 

A Lynchburg attorney with Charlottesville-based nonprofit The Rutherford Institute now is representing a Central Virginia Training Center resident whose father claims the state is seeking to undermine her First Amendment right to freely practice her religion. The Rutherford Institute, which gives legal aid in matters of constitutional rights, issued a statement Friday saying that Virginia is trying to “strip Alisha’s parents of their right to be consulted in her care.”

If you’re driving through Virginia, you don’t dare think about catching a few winks in your car if you get tired. That’s the warning from the civil rights experts at the Rutherford Institute, who say a new Roanoke County ordinance allows police to do warrantless searches and seizures on vehicles and their drivers. If they’re taking a nap.

“The major due process concern with ERPOs (red flag gun laws) is that they allow a person to be deprived of property (a gun) and liberty (their Second Amendment right) before they are granted an opportunity to be heard,” John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, told WhoWhatWhy. 

Rick Sanchez breaks down the Pentagon putting your tax dollars to work: Lobster, crab, alcohol, golf carts, tubas and trombones – the list goes on! Then constitutional attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute (www.rutherford.org) John Whitehead joins to weigh in on the colossal waste of tax money that the US “defense” budget represents and which puts the country ever deeper in debt.

Citing a “pat-down” by Transportation Security Administration officials that effectively was an assault on a 13-year-old girl that left her in tears, officials with the Rutherford Institute have written the TSA asking officials to change their procedures. “No American should be subjected to a virtual strip search or excessive groping of the body, or have their underage children touched intimately by strangers as a matter of course in boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “In both word and deed, the TSA operates as if members of the public and their children have no rights and no defense against the agency and its employees even if an agent assaults them, wrongfully detains them, or fabricates criminal charges against them. However, parents do not forfeit their rights when they travel by air with their children.”

A Virginia-based nonprofit that provides legal services in defense of civil liberties named the city of Muskogee and five current or former police officers in a federal lawsuit alleging excessive force and deprivation of rights. Lawyers for The Rutherford Institute filed the complaint on behalf of Jeriel Edwards, whom they allege was subjected to "excessive force and brutality" despite his compliance with police. Lawyers representing Edwards allege police threw their client to the ground, used a Taser and chokehold to subdue him, rendering him unconscious to the point of requiring hospitalization.

A device specifically designed to break into iPhones and Apple operating systems and allow access to encrypted files has been approved for purchase by the Charlottesville Police Department.City Police Purchase Equipment to Crack Locked iPhones

Access to the monthly magazine Prison Legal News (PLN) is one of the few ways prisoners learn about criminal justice issues, including their rights as prisoners. Most incarcerated individuals across America have access to the publication. The exception? Every prisoner in Florida.

Civil rights groups are asking an appeals court to reinstate a case alleging Transportation Security Administration agents “frisked, handcuffed, arrested and detained” a woman for 18 hours for criticizing some agents. The Rutherford Institute says it and other groups have filed an appeal with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case of Nadine Pellegrino.

Officials at a California high school have admitted they were wrong to reprimand two students for wearing NRA t-shirts. One girl at Lodi High School was kicked out of her history class for wearing the t-shirt. She and another girl, also wearing an NRA shirt, were then lectured by the teacher who told them guns are bad. John Whitehead, a civil liberties attorney who leads The Rutherford Institute, says he applauds the girls for refusing to remove their shirts.

The Rutherford Institute is considering representing an Albemarle County man that was arrested for purchasing and bringing prohibited items within Charlottesville’s downtown restricted zone.

VIDEO: NSA spying, TSA groping, police shooting first and asking questions later. As the grip of the police state gets ever tighter, how can we resist? Is there any hope of rolling it back? Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead joins today's Liberty Report.