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During the pandemic, government officials and the courts quietly dismantled the U.S. Constitution, stripping Americans of key constitutional protections, according to Florida resident Brian Ward.
In a 29-page letter to Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Ward said that through a series of legal rulings and government actions related to COVID-19 mandates, Americans may have lost the ability to refuse medical interventions, protect their private biomedical information and seek justice when their rights are violated.
Ward accused the courts of nullifying one of the Constitution’s most fundamental protections — the right to due process — and modifying the Constitution without a formal amendment.
Ward’s accusations stem in part from a lawsuit he filed in July 2025 against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary.
Ward challenged 21 C.F.R. Section 50.22, an FDA rule that allows certain clinical investigations to proceed without participants’ informed consent. He argued that the rule violated his constitutional rights to bodily autonomy and due process and his right to be free from involuntary servitude.
The court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Ward lacked standing to bring the claims.
On a recent episode of the “DarkHorse Podcast,” hosts Bret Weinstein, Ph.D., and Heather Heying, Ph.D., discussed Ward’s argument and why its implications extend far beyond COVID-19 or vaccine mandates.
“What Mr. Ward is advancing here is a very exhaustive discussion of the way in which our rights have been substantially altered,” Weinstein said. “He argues that, effectively, the Constitution is modified without the process that is supposed to be required to modify the Constitution.”
At the center of Ward’s argument is the due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which protect Americans from government actions that deprive them of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
Weinstein explained the principle in simple terms: “The upshot is that they can’t just take stuff from you.”
In his letter, Ward argues that court rulings have eroded that protection, allowing government officials to override individual rights while leaving people with little recourse. Ward copied Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others on the letter addressed to Moody.
‘Congress had far better immunization during COVID than the rest of us did’
Ward’s argument builds on familiar concerns about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and manufacturers’ legal immunity. But he focuses on what those policies and subsequent court decisions mean for Americans’ ability to exercise their constitutional rights.
Congress established legal protections that generally shield manufacturers from liability for injuries associated with covered countermeasures, including the COVID-19 vaccines. At the same time, governments used mandates and other forms of pressure to force people to use those products.
“What he’s arguing is that Congress, on the one hand, has created immunity from liability, and then it has created the opportunity for coercion,” Weinstein said. “People were forced into something, they were injured and they have lost their access to the court because it was preemptively immunized by the Congress.”
Heying underscored the disparity: “Congress had far better immunization during COVID than the rest of us did.”
“It does describe the maddening fact of what happened under the COVID regime,” Weinstein added.
Ward points to court rulings that allow governments to require experimental drugs as a condition of employment, even when the drugs pose a significant threat to a person’s life, liberty or property.
The letter cites police officers, firefighters, EMTs, teachers, healthcare workers and people in other licensed professions, including real estate professionals. “This extends quite far outside of the health profession,” Heying said.
Ward argues that by upholding these mandates, courts have effectively allowed governments to strip citizens of their right to legal recourse simply as a condition of keeping their jobs or receiving public benefits.
Americans have ‘lost the right to say no’
Ward also identified another due process threat: collecting and using identifiable biometric information without meaningful consent.
Even small biological samples can reveal extensive information about a person, including genetic information that could remain identifiable and follow that person throughout life.
Weinstein said Ward is concerned that Americans have effectively “lost the right to say no” to the collection of such information — and lost control over how it is used.
“You have lost the ability to protect this data,” Weinstein said. “You’ve effectively lost your property without due process in the form of data related to you.”
The concern goes beyond privacy. Ward warns that genetic information could potentially be used to develop biological threats targeted at specific individuals.
‘Your constitutional rights can’t have exceptions’
Ward’s larger concern is that courts, which are supposed to protect constitutional rights, have instead allowed government policies to override them.
“The courts are supposed to be people who are trained in ignoring who you are and not applying laws selectively,” Weinstein said. “And they have ceased to function in this way.”
Weinstein rejected the idea that a public health emergency creates an exception to constitutional protections. “Your constitutional rights can’t have exceptions,” he said.
The founders understood epidemics and other public health threats, but did not create an exception allowing the government to suspend constitutional rights during an emergency, Weinstein noted.
“There’s not supposed to be one because, of course, if there was one, people who don’t like your rights … will use the excuse of a pandemic emergency to eliminate those rights while you’re not paying attention,” he said.
Ward outlines the stakes bluntly in his letter to Moody:
“If an American can be made to barter away the highest privilege of citizenship — the right to sue when injured — in order to enjoy a public benefit, or can lose that right when injured by criminal conduct, what force of law does the Constitution still possess? It has none.”
Ward doesn’t just outline what he sees as a constitutional crisis. His letter also proposes 10 solutions, including investigations into the official boards and contractors who oversaw the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 vaccine program to identify potential failures in safety oversight and regulatory compliance.
He also calls on DeSantis and Florida lawmakers to pass legislation making it easier for citizens to sue when they believe their constitutional rights or medical freedom have been violated. Another proposal urges Florida’s attorney general to sue the FDA to overturn a regulation that allows certain medical experiments to proceed without participants’ informed consent.
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‘You … should be ready to die on the hill that protects your rights’
Weinstein described constitutional rights as a check on concentrated power — protections that prevent powerful people and institutions from harming others without being held accountable.
“Your rights are a balancing of power against those who would otherwise do terrible things to you and not be held to account,” he said.
Weinstein specifically pointed to pharmaceutical companies and the financial incentives created when manufacturers can avoid accountability.
When powerful people don’t care about regular people, “you can expect them to use every bit of power at their disposal to eliminate your rights so they can make the maximum profit before they walk away and go do something else,” he said. “I’m looking at you, Pharma.”
For Weinstein, this is not simply a fight over what happened during COVID-19. It is about whether Americans will retain the protections that prevent powerful institutions, corporations and government officials from abusing their authority.
“You, as a normal person, should be ready to die on the hill that protects your rights,” he said. “Those rights aren’t just your rights, they’re also your children’s rights or your grandchildren’s rights and … the rights of all of the other people in your nation.”
Ultimately, Weinstein said, courts are supposed to serve as the last line of defense. Legislatures can pass laws, but judges must strike them down when they violate constitutional protections.
“The fact that that is not happening is a maximum alarm fire, all hands on deck, your Constitution is in the process of disintegrating,” he said.
Watch the ‘DarkHorse Podcast’ here:
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