Contact: Nisha Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute, 434-978-3888 ext 604, 434-466-6168 cell, nisha@rutherford.org 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Dec. 31, 2014 /Standard Newswire/ -- Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, has been named one of the "Good Guys of 2014" by Watchdog.org, a nationwide group of investigative journalists covering state-specific and local government activity.

As Watchdog explained, "These citizens, government officials and politicians took to heart the mission of Watchdog.org, to hold government at all levels accountable to the public. We salute each of them. They are motivated citizens, regulators and politicians who fought to make government a little smaller and less onerous and who lifted the ever-growing burden on taxpayers."

Investigative journalist Kenric Ward of Watchdog's Virginia Bureau provided the rationale for the group's inclusion of Whitehead among their Good Guys of 2014:

Whitehead went stronger than ever in 2014. Whitehead, an attorney based in Charlottesville, Va., was one of the first to blow the whistle on invasive use of drones. Recently, he helped free a veteran who was arrested for posting "dangerous" opinions on Facebook. Where partisan agendas paralyze the ACLU, the Rutherford Institute stays true to the fundamental principle that government overreach puts a chokehold on individual liberty. Whitehead's 2013 book — "A Government of Wolves" — paints a grim portrait of a nation in the final stages of transformation into a police state. This inconvenient truth offends our public servants and mainstream media outlets dutifully toeing the statist line. But Whitehead also discomforts conservatives who preach "American exceptionalism" abroad while steadily undercutting constitutional rights at home.

Watchdog's complete list of "Good Guys of 2014" is available at
watchdog.org/188627/good-guys-pt-6.