On The Front Lines

John W. Whitehead to Appear at Virginia Festival of the Book to Discuss His Best-Selling Book 'Battlefield America: The War on the American People'

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, will appear at a special session of the Virginia Festival of the Book, taking place in Charlottesville, Va., on Thursday, March 17, from 4-5:30 pm 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. Whitehead will also explore how the current state of affairs in America—with militarized police, NSA surveillance, SWAT team raids, drones, private prisons, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization and more—evolved and what Americans can do to push back against a government that is out of control and government leaders who refuse to listen to the citizenry. A Q&A session and book signing will follow Whitehead’s speech.

WHAT:  Virginia Festival of the Book. Battlefield America: The War on the American People.

The event is free and open to the public.

WHEN: Thursday, March 17, 2016, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

WHERE: Central JMRL (Jefferson-Madison Regional) Library - McIntire Room (201 E Market Street), Charlottesville, Va.

WEB: http://vabook.org/program/battlefield-america-the-war-on-the-american-people/

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)

Praise for Battlefield America:

• “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