Watchlisted: You’re Probably Already on a Government Extremism List

John W. Whitehead
9 min readJan 23, 2024

“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught.” — Hunter S. Thompson

According to the FBI, you may be an anti-government extremist if you’ve:

a) purchased a Bible or other religious materials,

b) used terms like “MAGA” and “Trump,”

c) shopped at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, or Bass Pro Shops,

d) purchased tickets to travel by bus, cars, or plane,

e) all of the above.

In fact, if you selected any of those options in recent years, you’re probably already on a government watchlist.

That’s how broadly the government’s net is being cast in its pursuit of domestic extremists.

We’re all fair game now, easy targets for inclusion on some FBI watch list or another.

When the FBI is asking banks and other financial institutions to carry out dragnet searches of customer transactions — warrantlessly and without probable cause — for “extremism” indicators broadly based on where you shop, what you read, and how you travel, we’re all in trouble.

Clearly, you don’t have to do anything illegal.

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John W. Whitehead

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, is one of the nation’s leading advocates of civil liberties and human rights.