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CHARLOTTESVILLE(Rutherford) Despite all appearances to the contrary, martial law has not been declared in America. We still have rights.

Technically, at least.

The government may act as if its police state powers suppress individual liberties during this COVID-19 pandemic, but for all intents and purposes, the Constitutionespecially the battered, besieged Bill of Rightsstill stands in theory, if not in practice.

Indeed, while federal and state governments have adopted specific restrictive measures in an effort to lockdown the nation and decelerate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the current public health situation has not resulted in the suspension of fundamental constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and the right of assembly.

Mind you, thats not to say that the government has not tried its best to weaponize this crisis as it has weaponized so many other crises in order to expand its powers and silence its critics.

All over the country, government officials are using COVID-19 restrictions to muzzle protesters.

It doesnt matter what the protest is about (church assemblies, the right to work, the timing for re-opening the country, discontent over police brutality, etc.): this is activity the First Amendment protects vociferously with only one qualificationthat it be peaceful.

Yet even peaceful protesters mindful of the need to adhere to social distancing guidelines because of this COVID-19 are being muzzled, arrested and fined.

For example, a Maryland family was reportedly threatened with up to a year in jail and a $5000 fine if they dared to publicly protest the injustice of their sons execution by a SWAT team.

If anyone had a legitimate reason to get out in the streets and protest, its the Lemp family, whose 21-year-old son Duncan was gunned down in his bedroom during an early morning, no-knock SWAT team raid on his familys home.

Imagine it.

It was 4:30 a.m. on March 12, 2020, in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that has most of the country under a partial lockdown and sheltering at home, when this masked SWAT teamdeployed to execute a high risk search warrant for unauthorized firearmsstormed the suburban house where 21-year-old Duncan, a software engineer and Second Amendment advocate, lived with his parents and 19-year-old brother.

The entire household, including Lemp and his girlfriend, was reportedly asleep when theSWAT team directed flash-bang grenades and gunfire through Lemps bedroom window.

Lemp waskilledand his girlfriend injured.

No one in the house that morning, including Lemp, had a criminal record.

No one in the house that morning, including Lemp, was considered an imminent threat to law enforcement or the public, at least not according to the search warrant.

Now what was so urgent that militarized police felt compelled to employ battlefield tactics in the pre-dawn hours of a day when most people are asleep in bed, not to mention stuck at home as part of a nationwide lockdown?

According to police, they were tipped off that Lemp was in possession of firearms.

So instead of approaching the house by the front door at a reasonable hour in order to investigate this complaintwhich is what the Fourth Amendment requirespolice instead strapped on their guns, loaded up their flash bang grenades and acted like battle-crazed warriors.

This is the blowback from all that military weaponry flowing to domestic police departments.

This is what happens when you use SWAT teams to carry out routine search warrants.

This is what happens when you adoptred flag gun laws, which Maryland did in 2018, painting anyone who might be in possession of a gunlegal or otherwiseas a threat that must be neutralized.

These red flag gun laws allow the police toremove guns from people merelysuspectedof being threats.

While in theory it appears perfectly reasonable to want to stop dangerous people before they act, where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is apotentialdanger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

Remember, this is the same government that uses the words anti-government, extremist and terroristinterchangeably.

This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web ofthreat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged words, and suspicious activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media,behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identifypotentialthreats.

This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to arrest and detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

This is the same government that has a growing listshared with fusion centers and law enforcement agenciesof ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeledpotentialenemies of the state.

Let that sink in a moment.

If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you are most likelyat the top of the governments terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as aNew York Timeseditorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a.domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that thegovernment is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe theeconomy is about to collapseand thegovernment will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number ofpolitical and/or ideological bumper stickerson your car.

Needless to say, if you happen to be passionate about the Constitution and a vocal critic of government corruption, youve already been flagged in a government database somewhere.

Likely, Lemp was, too.

Now Lemp is dead and his family is devastated, outraged and desperate to make sense of what appears to be an insensible act of violence resulting in an inexcusable loss of life.

As usual in these kinds of shootings,government officials have not been forthcoming with details about the shooting: police have refused to meet with family members, the contents of the warrant supporting the raid have not been revealed, and bodycam footage of the raid has not been disclosed.

So in order to voice their objections to police violence and demand answers about the shooting, Lemps family and friends planned to conduct an outdoor public demonstrationadhering to social distancing guidelinesonly to bethreatened with arrest, a year in jail and a $5000 finefor violating Marylands stay at home orders.

Yet heres the thing: we dont have to be muzzled and remain silent about government corruption, violence and misconduct just because were wearing masks and social distancing.

Thats not the point of this whole COVID-19 exercise, or is it?

While there is a moral responsibility to not endanger other lives with our actions, that does not mean relinquishing all of our freedoms.

Be responsible in how you exercise your freedoms, but dont allow yourselves to be muzzled or your individual freedoms to be undermined.

Understandably, no one wants to talk about individual freedoms when tens of thousands of people the world over are dying, and yet we must.

The decisions we make right nowabout freedom, commerce, free will, how we care for the least of these in our communities, what it means to provide individuals and businesses with a safety net, how far we allow the government to go in protecting us against this virus, etc.will haunt us for a long time to come.

At times like these, when emotions are heightened, fear dominates, common sense is in short supply, liberty takes a backseat to public safety, and democratic societies approach the tipping point towards mob rule, there is a tendency to cast those who exercise their individual freedoms (to freely speak, associate, assemble, protest, pursue a living, engage in commerce, etc.) as foolishly reckless, criminally selfish, or outright villains.

Sometimes that is true, but not always.

As I make clear in my bookBattlefield America: The War on the American People, there is always a balancing test between individual freedoms and the communal good.

What we must figure out is how to strike a balance that allows us to protect those who need protection without leaving us chained and in bondage to the police state.

We must find ways to mitigate against this contagion needlessly claiming any more lives and crippling any more communities, but lets not lose our heads:blindlyfollowing the path of least resistanceacquiescingwithout questionto whatever the government dictatescan only lead to more misery, suffering and the erection of a totalitarian regime in which there is no balance.

Feature photo | A nurse stands in counter-protest during a demonstration against stay-at-home orders at the State House, April 25, 2020, in Providence, R.I., during the coronavirus outbreak. Michael Dwyer | AP

John W. Whiteheadis founder and president ofThe Rutherford Institute. His new bookBattlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at http://www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted atjohnw@rutherford.org.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

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Your Freedoms Don't Have to Be Muzzled Just Because You're Wearing a Mask - Mintpress News