ATTENTION NEWSPAPER EDITORS:
This commentary is available online at www.rutherford.org.
Long Version ([link removed]) • Short Version ([link removed])
View this email in your browser ([link removed])
[link removed] Share ([link removed])
[link removed]: https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frutherford%2Fthe-new-gulag-mental-health-detentions-and-the-criminalization-of-dissent-by-john-nisha-whitehead Tweet ([link removed]: https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frutherford%2Fthe-new-gulag-mental-health-detentions-and-the-criminalization-of-dissent-by-john-nisha-whitehead)
[link removed] Forward ([link removed])


** The New Gulag: Mental Health Detentions and the Criminalization of Dissent
By John & Nisha Whitehead
July 31, 2025
------------------------------------------------------------

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is a dangerous activity ([link removed]) .”—Hannah Arendt

The government’s war on homelessness—much like its war on terrorism, its war on drugs, its war on illegal immigration, and its war on COVID-19—is yet another Trojan Horse.

First, President Trump issues an executive order empowering federal agencies to clear out homeless encampments and lock up the homeless in mental institutions ([link removed]) using involuntary civil commitment laws intended for dealing with individuals experiencing mental health crises.

Days later, a gunman allegedly suffering from a mental illness opens fire in New York City ([link removed]) , killing four before turning the gun on himself.

Coming on the heels of Trump’s executive order ([link removed]) aimed at “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” the shooting ([link removed]) has all the makings of a modern-day Reichstag fire: a tragedy weaponized to justify allowing the government use mental illness as a pretext for locking more people up without due process.

An Orwellian exercise in doublespeak, Trump’s executive order ([link removed]) suggests that jailing the homeless, rather than providing them with affordable housing, is the “compassionate” solution to homelessness.

According to USA Today, social workers, medical experts and mental health service providers say the president’s approach “will likely worsen homelessness across the country, particularly because Trump’s order contains no new funding for mental health or drug treatment. Additionally, they say the president appears to misunderstand the fundamental driver of homelessness: People can’t afford housing. ([link removed]) ”

And then comes the kicker: Trump wants to see more use of civil commitments (forced detentions) for anyone who is perceived as posing a risk “to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time ([link removed]) .”

Translation: the government wants to use homelessness as a pretext for indefinitely locking up anyone who might pose a threat to its chokehold on police state power.
MAKE THE GOVERNMENT PLAY BY THE RULES OF THE CONSTITUTION ([link removed])

When you consider the ramifications of giving the American police state that kind of authority to preemptively neutralize a potential threat, you’ll understand why some might view these looming mental health round-ups with trepidation.

By directing police to carry out forced detentions of individuals based not on criminal behavior but on perceived mental instability or drug use, the Trump administration is attempting to sidestep fundamental constitutional protections—due process, probable cause, and the presumption of innocence—by substituting medical discretion for legal standards.

Taken to its authoritarian limits, this could allow the government to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling dissidents who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.

Police in cities like New York have already been empowered to forcibly detain individuals for psychiatric evaluations ([link removed]) , based on vague, subjective criteria: having “firmly held beliefs not congruent with cultural ideas ([link removed]) ,” exhibiting “excessive fears,” or refusing “voluntary treatment.”

What happens when these criteria are expanded to encompass anyone who challenges the police state’s narrative?

Once the government is allowed to control the narrative over who is deemed mentally unfit, mental health care could become yet another pretext for pathologizing dissent in order to disarm and silence the government’s critics.

Take heed: this has the potential to become the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes, cloaked in the guise of public health and safety.

According to the Associated Press, federal agencies have been exploring how to incorporate “identifiable patient data ([link removed]) ” into their surveillance toolkits, including behavioral health records.

The infrastructure is already in place ([link removed]) to profile and detain individuals based on perceived psychological “risks.”

The government is actively exploring how to use data from wearable health devices—including heart rate, stress response, and sleep patterns—to flag individuals for intervention. Now imagine a future in which your Fitbit or Apple Watch triggers a mental health alert, resulting in your forced removal “for your own safety.”

Mass surveillance combined with artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, ([link removed]) mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, and government access to behavioral health records could pave the way for a regime of police state authoritarianism by way of preemptive mental health detentions.

If the police state is equipping itself to monitor, flag, and detain anyone it deems mentally unfit, without criminal charges or trial, this could be the tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

This is not about public safety. It’s about control.
YOUR SUPPORT HELPS THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE SOUND THE ALARM OVER THREATS TO OUR FREEDOMS: DONATE TODAY ([link removed])

We’ve seen this tactic before. When governments seek to suppress dissent without provoking outrage, they turn to psychiatric labels.

Throughout history, from Cold War-era Soviet gulags to modern pre-crime initiatives, authoritarian regimes have used psychiatric labels to isolate, discredit, and eliminate dissidents. As historian Anne Applebaum notes, administrative exile, which required no trial and due process, “was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime ([link removed]) .”

The word “gulag” refers to a labor or concentration camp where prisoners (oftentimes political prisoners or so-called “enemies of the state,” real or imagined) were imprisoned as punishment for their crimes against the state. Soviet dissidents were often declared mentally ill, institutionalized in prisons disguised as psychiatric hospitals, and subjected to forced medication and psychological torture.

Totalitarian regimes used such tactics to isolate political dissidents from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally.

In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers. Author George Kennan describes a process in which:

The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is “prejudicial to public order” or “incompatible with public tranquility,” he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years ([link removed]) .

Warrantless seizures, surveillance, indefinite detention, isolation, exile…sound familiar?

What’s unfolding in America is the modern police state’s version of that same script.

Civil commitment laws are found in all states and employed throughout American history.

Under the doctrines ([link removed]) of parens patriae and police power, the government already claims authority to confine those deemed unable to act in their own best interest or who pose a threat to society.

When fused, these doctrines give the state enormous discretion to preemptively lock people up based on speculative future threats, not actual crimes.

This discretion is now expanding at warp speed.

The result is a Nanny State mindset carried out with the militant force of the Police State.

Once dissent is equated with danger—and danger with illness—those who challenge the state become medicalized threats, subject to detention not for what they’ve done, but for what they believe.

We’ve already seen what happens when dissent is pathologized and criminalized, and civil commitment laws are weaponized:
* Russ Tice ([link removed]) , an NSA whistleblower, was labeled “mentally unbalanced” after attempting to testify in Congress about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.
* Adrian Schoolcraft ([link removed]) , an NYPD officer who exposed police corruption, was forcibly committed to a mental facility in retaliation.
* Brandon Raub ([link removed]) , a Marine who posted controversial political views on Facebook, was arrested and detained in a psychiatric ward under Virginia’s mental health laws.

These cases aren’t anomalies—they’re warning signs.

Government programs like Operation Vigilant Eagle ([link removed]) , launched in 2009, characterized military veterans as potential domestic terrorists if they showed signs of being “disgruntled or disillusioned.” A 2009 DHS report broadly defined “rightwing extremists ([link removed]) ” as anyone seen as antigovernment.

The result? A surveillance dragnet aimed at military veterans, political dissidents, gun owners, and constitutionalists.

Now, under the banner of mental health, the same dragnet is being equipped with red flag gun laws, predictive policing, and involuntary detention authority.

In theory, these laws are meant to prevent harm. In practice, they punish thought, not conduct.

Trump’s latest executive order doesn’t just target the homeless ([link removed]) —it establishes a precedent for rounding up anyone deemed a threat to the government’s version of law and order.

The same playbook that pathologized opposition to war or police brutality as “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” could now be used to classify political dissent as a psychiatric illness.

This is not hyperbole.

The government’s ability to silence dissent by labeling it as dangerous or diseased is well documented—and now it’s about to be codified into law.

Red flag gun laws ([link removed]) , for example, authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others. The stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats ([link removed]) . No mental health diagnosis is required ([link removed]) . No criminal charge. Just a hunch. Those most likely to be targeted? The people already on government watch lists: political activists, veterans, gun owners, and anyone labeled an “extremists”— a term that now applies to anyone critical of the government.

While the intention may appear reasonable—disarming people who pose an “immediate danger ([link removed]) ” to themselves or others—the problem arises when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of a police state that equates dissent with extremism.

This is the same police state that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably ([link removed]) .

The same police state whose agents are weaving a web of threat assessments ([link removed]) , behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using AI, social media surveillance, behavior sensing software ([link removed]) , and citizen snitches to identify potential threats.

The same police state that renews the NDAA year after year—authorizing the indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens.

The same police state that considers you suspicious based on your religion, your bumper stickers, or your political beliefs.

As a New York Times editorial warns, you may be labeled an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist ([link removed]) ) if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms ([link removed]) , believe the economy is about to collapse ([link removed]) , fear the government will soon declare martial law ([link removed]) , or display too many political and/or ideological bumper stickers ([link removed]) on your car.

This is the same police state that now wants access to your mental health data, your digital footprint, your biometric records—and the legal authority to detain you for your own good.

And it’s the same police state that, facing rising protests, unrest, and collapsing public trust, is seeking new ways to suppress dissent—not through open force, but under the cover of public health.

This is where thought crimes become real crimes.

We’ve seen this trajectory before.

The war on drugs.

The war on terror.

The war on COVID.

Each began with real concerns. Each ended as a tool of compliance, coercion, and control.

Now, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People ([link removed]) and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries ([link removed]) , we are entering a new war: the war on anti-government dissidents.

We are fast approaching a future where you can be locked up for the thoughts you think, the beliefs you hold, or the questions you ask.

The government will use any excuse to suppress dissent and control the narrative.

It will start with the homeless.

Then the mentally ill.

Then the so-called extremists.

Then the critics, the contrarians, and the constitutionalists.

Eventually, it will come for anyone who dares to get in the government's way.

This is how tyranny rises. This is how freedom falls.

Unless we resist this creeping mental health gulag, the prison gates will eventually close on us all.

WC: 1977

Source: [link removed]
[link removed]
ABOUT JOHN & NISHA WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books The Erik Blair Diaries ([link removed]) and Battlefield America: The War on the American People ([link removed]) are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

[link removed]
PUBLICATION GUIDELINES AND REPRINT PERMISSION

John W. Whitehead’s weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) to obtain reprint permission. Click here ([link removed]) to download a print quality image of John W. Whitehead.

Click here ([link removed]) to read more of John & Nisha Whitehead's commentaries.

[link removed] PODCAST AVAILABLE

Freedom Under Fire, a weekly podcast of constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead's popular syndicated column, is available on SoundCloud and iTunes. Click here ([link removed]) to access the podcast.

============================================================
** KEEP FREEDOM ALIVE ([link removed])

To donate via PayPal, click on the link below:

** ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** The Rutherford Institute ([link removed])
** The Rutherford Institute ([link removed])
Copyright © 2025 The Rutherford Institute, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because of your interest in the work of The Rutherford Institute. Founded in 1982 by constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute is a civil liberties organization that provides free legal services to people whose constitutional and human rights have been threatened or violated. To discontinue your membership electronically, or if you feel you are receiving this message in error, please follow the link below.

Our mailing address is:
The Rutherford Institute
Post Office Box 7482
Charlottesville, VA 22906
USA
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.
Under the regulations of the United States Internal Revenue Service, The Rutherford Institute is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit organization. Donations to support The Rutherford Institute’s legal and educational work help to safeguard the constitutional rights of all Americans. Donations are tax-deductible. In compliance with general industry standards of a nonprofit organization, the Institute is audited annually by an independent accounting firm.