In my judgment, this is the most serious domestic issue that the United States currently faces, and one that transcends the normal barriers of class, race, gender, and political ideology. The police state is the enemy of all Americans. John Whitehead is one of the very best writers on this issue out there.
WASHINGTON, DC — Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, will appear on a special broadcast of C-SPAN’S Washington Journal on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015, from 8:30-9:30 am EST to discuss his best-selling book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, which 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.
In Battlefield America: The War on the American People, (the follow-up to his award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State), Whitehead warns: “The outlook for civil liberties grows bleaker by the day, from the government’s embrace of indefinite detention for US citizens and armed surveillance drones flying overhead to warrantless surveillance of phone, email and Internet communications, and prosecutions of government whistle-blowers,” writes Whitehead. “The homeland is ruled by a police-industrial complex, an extension of the American military empire. Everything that our founding fathers warned against is now the new norm. The government has trained its sights on the American people. We have become the enemy.”
The shocking abuses of power revealed in Battlefield America have rendered Americans:
- Helpless in the face of militarized police (SWAT team raids, police shootings, roadside strip searches, asset forfeiture, 1033 programs) and routine invasions of privacy
- Vulnerable to government surveillance (Stingray devices, fusion centers, USA Patriot Act)
- Defenseless against absurd laws that have them arrested for letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, and growing vegetables in their yard (overcriminalization, National Defense Authorization Act, private prisons)
Battlefield America is drawing praise on all fronts:
- “The very fact that books like this can still be written and published shows that we have not lost all our freedoms. John Whitehead’s work should motivate us all to redouble our efforts to reclaim our freedoms.”—Dr. Ron Paul, 12-term U.S. Congressman and former presidential candidate
- “The loss of personal liberty, the growth of big government, and the death of government respect for persons rarely occur overnight. It takes a fine eye and a fearless manner to discover and reveal these dangers before it is too late. No one in American today does this better than John Whitehead. In his latest magnum opus, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, he paints the case that Fascism is already here, liberty is already lost, we are in more danger from the government than from bomb throwers, and it is nearly too late for hope. I challenge anyone to read this book and then try to go to sleep. I found that impossible.”—Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senior Judicial Analyst, Fox News
- “Government surveillance, militarized police, sneak-and-peek searches, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, private prisons: these are all pressing concerns that transcend partisan politics and render the citizenry not merely suspects but criminals. Whitehead makes a compelling and urgent case for Americans to unite under one common goal: in defense of our freedoms.” —Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU
This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.
