The Rutherford Institute on the Criminalization of Dissent: "Is Tweeting now a Felony under Federal Law?"

John W. Whitehead, Constitutional attorney and founder of The Rutherford Institute, has written a scathing analysis of the arrest of Elliot Madison.

                                           (image courtesy of www.rutherford.org)


Among his various claims:


1)  "With each passing day, hope fades that the Obama administration will diverge from George W. Bush's erection of a police state."


2)  "The government is sending a clear message that Elliot Madison is not the exception but the rule: this is what happens to people who disagree with the government and act on it. They are targeted, tracked, placed under surveillance and, if they happen to violate any arcane laws, made examples of."


3)  "Furthermore, the report uses the labels "terrorist" and "extremist" interchangeably. In other words, when citizens such as Elliot Madison voice what the government considers to be extremist viewpoints, that is tantamount to being a terrorist."


4)  "Clearly, freedom of thought and conscience are at serious risk today from federal and state agencies intent on suppressing actions they deem to be a threat to the status quo. It all adds up to an Orwellian government that would like nothing better than to dictate what we can think, read and believe. The thought police are not that far away."


What do you think?  Are the "thought police...not that far away"?