Oath Keepers
Constitution and bills itself as non-partisan. Formed in March 2009 by former U.S. Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate Stewart Rhodes (also a former staffer of U.S.
Representative Ron Paul), the movement has grown to include chapters in many states across the United States. The Oath Keepers' objective is to resist, non-violently, those actions taken by the federal government that it believes overstep constitutional boundaries; their motto is: "Not on our watch!" Oath Keepers is mostly comprised of military and law enforcement personnel: individuals who have sworn an oath to support and defend the U.S. Their most prominent document, "Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey," is available on the Oath Keepers website.
Oath Keepers appear in radio host Alex Jones' upcoming documentary Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama.
Organization
A legal defense fund may eventually be accessible to Oath Keepers whose employers have disciplined them for defying orders they deem unlawful or immoral.
Events
The inaugural national conference of Oath Keepers will be held in Las Vegas in October 2009.
Opinions about Oath Keepers
In the Southern Poverty Law Center's quarterly Intelligence Report, an article written by Larry Keller stated that the Oath Keepers "may be a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival." However, David Codrea has written a couple of articles at Examiner.com describing the SPLC report as a smear of the Oath Keepers. One of the highest-profile members of the Oath Keepers, former Graham County sheriff Richard Mack, has been described by the SPLC as a "longtime militia hero" and criticized for his controversial statements, such as declaring that county sheriffs are the highest form of law enforcement when it comes to protecting individuals' constitutional rights.
Mack has denounced, in a press release on the Oath Keepers website, the SPLC's claims about him.
Rupert Cornwell in The Independent described the Oath Keepers as a movement whose members "believe their duty is to the constitution, not to elected politicians."
David A.