A federal judge has given attorneys for The Rutherford Institute the go-ahead to proceed with a lawsuit against Virginia police after a “welfare check” on a 58-year-old man resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck and a 72-hour mental health hold. After a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Judge Glen Conrad refused a request by law enforcement officials to dismiss the lawsuit brought by The Rutherford Institute on behalf of Benjamin Burruss.

In pushing back against a government mindset that seeks to muzzle lawful First Amendment activity by establishing a “cordon of silence” in front of the U.S. Supreme Court plaza, The Rutherford Institute is urging the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of Hodge v. Talkin and, in doing so, overturn a 60-year-old federal statute criminalizing expressive activity on the plaza. The ban, which was described by a lower court as “repugnant” to the Constitution, extends even to those wearing t-shirts with political messages.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute will appear in court today to present arguments opposing an attempt by Virginia police to dismiss a lawsuit against them after a request to carry out a “welfare check” on a 58-year-old man resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck, a wrongful arrest, and a 72-hour mental health hold.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute are planning to appeal the dismissal of a First Amendment lawsuit involving two street preachers who were charged with trespass and obstruction of justice and arrested for allegedly refusing police orders to cease proselytizing at a Princeton train station.

In the first major ruling to deadlock since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a 4-4 U.S. Supreme Court has reached a stalemate in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which challenged whether public-sector employees should be required to subsidize political activities with which they disagree in violation of their First Amendment rights.

A settlement has been reached in a First Amendment lawsuit filed by The Rutherford Institute against police officers who allegedly intimidated and threatened to arrest a man who was lawfully and peacefully exercising his First Amendment rights in the Willie Mays Plaza prior to a Giants v. Dodgers game by holding up a “John 3:16” religious sign in the public plaza in front of the San Francisco Giants ballpark.

During Sunshine Week, The Rutherford Institute joined with a broad spectrum of nearly 30 organizations and whistleblowers—including the Government Accountability Project, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the American Library Association and whistleblower Coleen Rowley (a retired FBI agent who disclosed the Bureau’s pre-9/11 lapses)—to urge Congress to strengthen protections for employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who speak out against government waste and misconduct.

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.

A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed by The Rutherford Institute on behalf of a man who was arrested as he was engaged in a First Amendment protest against President Obama while lawfully carrying a rifle.

Warning that representative government works best when the government’s actions are fully disclosed and citizens are allowed to speak honestly and openly to their elected representatives and other citizens without fear of retribution, The Rutherford Institute has issued guidelines for local boards, commissions and councils to consider and follow in order to best assure that the fundamental First Amendment rights of citizens are respected.

Sounding a warning over proposed legislation that would bar the public from learning the identity of persons employed as law enforcement officers, The Rutherford Institute is cautioning the Virginia General Assembly against taking an unprecedented and unjustified step toward the creation of unaccountable secret police forces. The proposed legislation, Senate Bill No. 552, would classify the names of all police officers as “personnel records,” and exempt them from mandatory disclosure under Virginia’s freedom of information law.

The Rutherford Institute and a coalition of educational, legal, human rights and media organizations, including the ACLU, Wikipedia, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, have asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate a lawsuit challenging the government’s mass surveillance programs.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute are rebutting attempts by Virginia police and other government officials to dismiss a lawsuit against them after a request to carry out a “welfare check” on a 58-year-old man resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck, a wrongful arrest, and a 72-hour mental health hold.

In a ruling handed down in United States v. Rocky Joe Houston, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed that police can spy on Americans’ front doors for ten weeks without a warrant using a camera mounted to a public utility pole. In rebutting the concern that such surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against warrantless searches, Circuit Judge John M. Rogers noted, “Although this ten-week surveillance was conducted without a warrant, the use of the pole camera did not violate Houston’s reasonable expectations of privacy because the camera recorded the same view of the farm as that enjoyed by passersby on public roads…the Fourth Amendment does not punish law enforcement for using technology to more efficiently conduct their investigations.”

Warning against attempts by the government to intimidate journalists whose reporting portrays the government in a negative light or encourages citizens to challenge government injustice and wrongdoing, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have weighed in on the government’s arrest and ongoing prosecution of radio shock jock Pete Santilli.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare its own ban on expressive First Amendment activity on the Supreme Court plaza unconstitutional. In asking the Court to hear the case of Hodge v. Talkin, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia’s decision to uphold a 60-year-old federal statute criminalizing expressive First Amendment activity on the Supreme Court plaza conflicts with the high court’s own rulings regarding expressive activity in public elsewhere.

Declaring that the government cannot refuse to register trademark applications because it disapproves of the expressive messages conveyed by the marks, a federal appeals court has ruled unconstitutional a federal statute that allows the government to reject trademark applications for names that might be offensive to certain persons or groups.

The Rutherford Institute and a coalition of educational, legal, human rights and media organizations have filed an appeal and will ask the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate a lawsuit challenging the government’s mass surveillance programs.

The Bill of Rights officially became part of the U.S. Constitution on December 15, 1791. Unfortunately, more than 200 years later, the freedoms enshrined in those first ten amendments are in dire jeopardy. Those responsible for its demise are none other than the schools, which have failed to educate students about its principles; the courts, which have failed to uphold the rights enshrined within it; the politicians, who long ago sold out to corporations and special interests; and “we the people” who, in our ignorance and greed, have valued materialism over freedom.