This is an attack on the Tenth Amendment, which affirms the right of the states to stand as a xxxxxx against power grabs by the federal government.

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-federal-coup-to-overthrow-the-states-is-underway-by-john-w-whitehead Tweet ([link removed] https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frutherford%2Fthe-federal-coup-to-overthrow-the-states-is-underway-by-john-w-whitehead)
[link removed] Forward ([link removed])


** The Federal Coup to Overthrow the States and Nix the 10th Amendment Is Underway
------------------------------------------------------------


** By John W. Whitehead
July 21, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors, to do our job. We’re going to do that, whether they like us there or not. ([link removed]) ”—Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s defense of the Trump Administration’s deployment of militarized federal police to address civil unrest in the states

This is a wake-up call.

What is unfolding before our very eyes—with police agencies defying local governments in order to tap into the power of federal militarized troops in order to put down domestic unrest ([link removed]) —could very quickly snowball into an act of aggression against the states, a coup by armed, militarized agents of the federal government.

At a minimum, this is an attack on the Tenth Amendment ([link removed]) , which affirms the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, and the right of the states to stand as a xxxxxx against overreach and power grabs by the federal government ([link removed]) .

If you’re still deluding yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state, you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.

This is a turning point.
EXTENDED DEADLINE! DOUBLE THE IMPACT OF YOUR DONATION BEFORE AUG. 15: $125,000 MATCHING GIFT CAMPAIGN ([link removed])

Unless we take back the reins—and soon—looking back on this time years from now, historians may well point to the events of 2020 as the death blow to America’s short-lived experiment in self-government.

The government’s recent actions in Portland, Oregon—when unidentified federal agents (believed to be border police, ICE and DHS agents), wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” and sporting all kinds of weapons, descended uninvited on the city in unmarked vehicles, snatching protesters off the streets ([link removed]) and detaining them without formally arresting them or offering any explanation of why they’re being held—is just a foretaste of what’s to come.

One of those detainees was a 53-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was in downtown Portland during the protests but not a participant. Concerned about the tactics being used by government agents who had taken an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, Christopher David tried to speak the “secret” police. Almost immediately, he was assaulted by federal agents, beaten with batons and pepper sprayed ([link removed]) .

Another peaceful protester was reportedly shot in the head with an impact weapon ([link removed]) by this federal goon squad.

The Trump Administration has already announced its plans to deploy these border patrol agents to other cities across the country ([link removed]) (Chicago is supposedly next) in an apparent bid to put down civil unrest. Yet the overriding concerns by state and local government officials ([link removed]) to Trump’s plans suggest that weaponizing the DHS as an occupying army will only provoke more violence and unrest.

We’ve been set up.

Under the guise of protecting federal properties against civil unrest, the Trump Administration has formed a task force of secret agents who look, dress and act like military stormtroopers on a raid and have been empowered to roam cities in unmarked vehicles ([link removed]) , snatching citizens off the streets, whether or not they’ve been engaged in illegal activities.

As the Guardian reports, “The incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIA’s post-9/11 rendition program under George W Bush ([link removed]) , where intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, it’s happening in downtown Portland.”

The so-called racial justice activists who have made looting, violence, vandalism and intimidation tactics the hallmarks of their protests have played right into the government’s hands.

They have delivered all of us into the police state’s hands.

There’s a reason Trump has tapped the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for this dirty business: these agencies are notorious for their lawlessness, routinely sidestepping the Constitution and trampling on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including legal citizens.

Indeed, it was only a matter of time before these roving bands of border patrol agents began flexing their muscles far beyond the nation’s borders and exercising their right to disregard the Constitution at every turn ([link removed]) .

Except these border patrol cops aren’t just disregarding the Constitution.

They’re trampling all over the Constitution ([link removed]) , especially the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from carrying out egregious warrantless searches and seizures without probable cause.

As part of the government’s so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking, its border patrol cops have been expanding their reach, roaming further afield ([link removed]) and subjecting greater numbers of Americans to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.

That so-called border, once a thin borderline, has become an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and deeper inside the country.

Now, with this latest salvo by the Trump administration in its so-called crackdown on rioting and civil unrest, America itself is about to become a Constitution-free zone where freedom is off-limits and government agents have all the power and “we the people” have none.

The Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with its more than 60,000 employees ([link removed]) , supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, a national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies.

As journalist Todd Miller explains:

In these vast domains, Homeland Security authorities can institute roving patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates ([link removed]) . There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the international boundary, CBP agents can enter a person’s private property without a warrant.

Just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes ([link removed]) to local police agencies in the form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.

As Miller points out, the government has turned the nation’s expanding border regions into “a ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution ([link removed]) , a place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of borderland residents have become the targets of continual surveillance.”

In much the same way that police across the country have been schooled in the art of sidestepping the Constitution, border cops have also been drilled in the art of “anything goes” in the name of national security.

In fact, according to FOIA documents shared with The Intercept, border cops even have a checklist of “possible behaviors” that warrant overriding the Constitution ([link removed]) and subjecting individuals—including American citizens—to stops, searches, seizures, interrogations and even arrests.

For instance, if you’re driving a vehicle that to a border cop looks unusual ([link removed]) in some way, you can be stopped. If your passengers look dirty ([link removed]) or unusual, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers avoid looking at a cop ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If you or your passengers look too long at a cop ([link removed]) , you can be stopped.

If you’re anywhere near a border ([link removed]) (near being within 100 miles of a border, or in a city, or on a bus, or at an airport), you can be stopped and asked to prove you’re legally allowed to be in the country. If you’re traveling on a public road ([link removed]) that smugglers and other criminals may have traveled, you can be stopped.

If you’re not driving in the same direction as other cars ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If you appear to be avoiding a police checkpoint ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If your car appears to be weighed down ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If your vehicle is from out of town ([link removed]) , wherever that might be, you can be stopped. If you’re driving a make of car that criminal-types have also driven ([link removed]) , you can be stopped.

If your car appears to have been altered or modified ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If the cargo area in your vehicle is covered ([link removed]) , you can be stopped.

If you’re driving during a time of day or night that border cops find suspicious ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If you’re driving when border cops are changing shifts ([link removed]) , you can be stopped. If you’re driving in a motorcade ([link removed]) or with another vehicle, you can be stopped. If your car appears dusty ([link removed]) , you can be stopped.

If people with you are trying to avoid being seen ([link removed]) , or exhibiting “unusual” behavior, you can be stopped. If you slow down after seeing a cop ([link removed]) , you can be stopped.

In Portland, which is 400 miles from the border, protesters didn’t even have to be near federal buildings to be targeted. Some claimed to be targeted for simply wearing black clothing ([link removed]) in the area of the demonstration.

Are you starting to get the picture yet?

This was never about illegal aliens and border crossings at all. It’s been a test to see how far “we the people” will allow the government to push the limits of the Constitution.
MAKE THE GOVERNMENT PLAY BY THE RULES OF THE CONSTITUTION: SUPPORT THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM ([link removed])

We’ve been failing this particular test for a long time ([link removed]) now.

It was 1798 when Americans, their fears stoked by rumblings of a Quasi-War with France, failed to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts ([link removed]) , which criminalized anti-government speech, empowered the government to deport “dangerous” non-citizens and made it harder for immigrants to vote.

During the Civil War, Americans went along when Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus ([link removed]) (the right to a speedy trial) and authorized government officials to spy on Americans’ mail.

During World War I, Americans took it in stride when President Woodrow Wilson and Congress adopted the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to interfere with the war effort and criminalized any speech critical of war ([link removed]) .

By World War II, Americans were marching in lockstep with the government’s expanding war powers to imprison Japanese-American citizens in detainment camps, censor mail, and lay the groundwork for the future surveillance state ([link removed]) .

Fast-forward to the Cold War’s Red Scares, the McCarthy era’s hearings on un-American activities, and the government’s surveillance of Civil Rights activists ([link removed]) such as Martin Luther King Jr.—all done in the name of national security.

By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government was given greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest ([link removed]) American citizens in order to keep America safe.

The terrorist invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers made possible by the nefarious USA Patriot Act.

Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial ([link removed]) , all in the name of keeping America safe.

Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to build an expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and empower the military to “assist” with border control ([link removed]) .

That so-called immigration crisis has now morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government is eager to use in order to expand its powers.

Yet as we’ve learned the hard way, once the government acquires—and uses—additional powers (to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the police, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process), it does not voluntarily relinquish them.

This is the slippery slope on which we’ve been traveling for far too long.

As Yale historian Timothy Snyder explains, “This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire. The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior. ([link removed]) ”

Sure, it’s the Trump Administration calling the shots right now, but it’s government agents armed with totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution and all it represents.

Whether it’s Trump or Biden or someone else altogether, this year or a dozen years from now, the damage has been done: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People ([link removed]) , we have allowed the president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any moment.

There’s a reason the Trump Administration is consulting with John Yoo ([link removed]) , the Bush-era attorney notorious for justifying waterboarding torture tactics against detainees. They’re not looking to understand how to follow the law and abide by the Constitution. Rather, they’re desperately seeking ways to thwart the Constitution.

As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable. ([link removed])

This is how it begins.

This is how it always begins.

Don’t be fooled into thinking any of this will change when the next election rolls around.

WC: 2265

Source: [link removed]

============================================================

** ([link removed])

ABOUT JOHN WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His books ** Battlefield America: The War on the American People ([link removed])
and ** A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State ([link removed])
are available online at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at ** [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
. ** Click here ([link removed])
to read more of John Whitehead's commentaries.

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.

** ([link removed])
COMMENTARY 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.
** SUPPORT OUR WORK WITH A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION ([link removed])

To donate via ** PayPal ([link removed])
, 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 © 2020 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
** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
** update subscription preferences ([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.