John Whitehead | The Libertarian Institute

Surveillance, Both Public and Private

by John Whitehead | Jan 24, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

“We live in a surveillance state founded on a partnership between government and the technology industry.”— Law Professor Avidan Y. Cover In this age of ubiquitous surveillance, there are no private lives: everything is public. Surveillance cameras mounted on utility poles, traffic lights, businesses, and homes. License plate readers. Ring doorbells. GPS devices. Dash cameras. Drones. Store security cameras. Geofencing and geotracking. FitBits. Alexa. Internet-connected devices. There are roughly one billion surveillance cameras worldwide and that number continues to grow, thanks to their...

The U.S. Government Is Persecuting America’s Veterans

by John Whitehead | Nov 15, 2022 | Featured Articles

“For soldiers … coming home is more lethal than being in combat.”- Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston The U.S. government is still waging war on America’s military veterans. Especially veterans who exercise their First Amendment right to speak out against government wrongdoing. Consider: we raise our young people on a steady diet of militarism and war, sell them on the idea that defending freedom abroad by serving in the military is their patriotic duty, then when they return home, bruised and battle-scarred and committed to defending their freedoms at home, we...

There Are Now More Armed Bureaucrats Than There Are U.S. Marines

by John Whitehead | Aug 23, 2022 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison The IRS has stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition in recent years, including 621 shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles and 15 submachine guns. The Veterans Administration (VA) purchased 11 million rounds of ammunition (equivalent to 2,800 rounds for each of their officers), along with camouflage uniforms, riot helmets and shields, specialized image enhancement devices and tactical lighting. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acquired 4 million...

The Government’s Killswitch For Your Car, and Your Freedom

by John Whitehead | Feb 16, 2022 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

“A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power.”—Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle If we haven’t learned by now, we should beware of anything the government insists is for our own good. Take the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Given the deteriorating state of the nation’s infrastructure (aging highways and bridges, outdated railways and airports, etc.), which have been neglected for years in order to fund America’s endless wars abroad, it would seem like an obvious and long overdue fix. Yet there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. Tucked into...

It’s Time to Bring Our Troops Home

by John Whitehead | Sep 1, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“Let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad. This is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to a proper role in the world. But we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves…together we will call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning.”—George S. McGovern, former Senator and presidential candidate It’s time to bring all our troops home. Bring them home...

Your Right to Bodily Integrity

by John Whitehead | Aug 24, 2021 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

We’ve reached the point where state actors can penetrate rectums and vaginas, where judges can order forced catheterizations, and where police and medical personnel can perform scans, enemas and colonoscopies without the suspect’s consent. And these procedures aren’t to nab kingpins or cartels, but people who at worst are hiding an amount of drugs that can fit into a body cavity. In most of these cases, they were suspected only of possession or ingestion. Many of them were innocent… But these tactics aren’t about getting drugs off the street… These tactics are instead about degrading and...

Medical Apartheid Is Here

by John Whitehead | Aug 5, 2021 | Featured Articles

The things we were worried would happen are happening. — Angus Johnston, professor at the City University of New York Imagine it: a national classification system that not only categorizes you according to your health status but also allows the government to sort you in a hundred other ways: by gender, orientation, wealth, medical condition, religious beliefs, political viewpoint, legal status, etc. This is the slippery slope upon which we are embarking, one that begins with vaccine passports and ends with a national system of segregation. It has already begun. With every passing day, more...

It Says ‘Shall Not Be Infringed’

by John Whitehead | Jul 15, 2021 | Featured Articles

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” — The Second Amendment to the US Constitution You can largely determine where a person will fall in the debate over gun control and the Second Amendment based on their view of government and the role it should play in our lives. In the first group are those who see the government as a Nanny State, empowered to look out for the best interests of the populace, even when that means overriding our rights as individuals and free will. These...

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