Michael Ruppert is the founder and editor of From The Wilderness, a newsletter and website dedicated to investigating political cover-ups. On August 16, 2006 Ruppert announced that he was leaving the United States permanently, citing years of harassment for his ongoing dissident activities.

After returning to Los Angeles, Ruppert started writing again from retirement. On March 24, 2008, Ruppert published an article calledRETROSPECTIVE - 2008. He has written three more articles dated September 17, September 29, and November 5, 2008. All four of these new articles are posted at his From The Wilderness website. In the Sep. 29th article, Ruppert wrote, "I have broken an unspoken deal with the government to remain retired and not speak out."

From The Wilderness was a newsletter published by the media company From The Wilderness Publications, which claimed to be ahead of the mainstream media by as much as one year. The newsletter covered a range of political and governmental issues. It was published eleven times per year but featured weekly updates online. It was started by Michael Ruppert in 1998. Critics such as David Corn and Norman Solomon argued that Ruppert on occasion veered off into making unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claims. Ruppert himself said he documented his sources, and is a trained police detective (ex-LAPD narcotics officer).

Their website says that the newsletter was about "the publication of documented truth and the letting go of fear through education" and claimed to distribute to "16,000 subscribers in 40 countries including 35 members of the United States Congress and professors at 30 universities around the world" before being shut down. It is however known that Ruppert also counted free copies that he sent out to political leaders, members of congress and other non-subscription based peoples.

Michael Craig Ruppert was born in Washington, D.C. His father was an Air Force officer and later an aerospace executive who worked on projects which included the Titan III. His father's cousin, Barbara Burges and her husband Sam, are both retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Mr. Ruppert's mother was a cryptographer for Army Intelligence at Fort Myer, VA, during the Second World War.

Ruppert was raised a Republican. He has jokingly said that from 1969 to 1973, he was one of two "living" Republicans on the UCLA campus. During that time, Ruppert was chosen, as an honors student in political science, to intern for Chief Edward M. Davis of the Los Angeles Police Department(LAPD).

After graduation from UCLA, he was assigned to Wilshire Division patrol, and excelled at patrol work and was subsequently sent on detective assignments, including burglary and homicide. He was later recommended by the narcotics officer-in-charge to attend a two-week DEA training school held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Narcotics was Ruppert's chosen specialty, and has given expert court testimony on the subject 27 times.

In 1977, Ruppert discovered an extensive drug trafficking operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency and went on record about this ongoing criminal activity. He resigned from the LAPD in 1978 despite earning the highest rating reports possible, over the tolerance of continued CIA drug dealing activities.  Ruppert's personal experience with death threats, 3 shooting attempts on him, aggressive intimidation over his attempted exposure of these illegal drug activities within Los Angeles, and his ethical conflict with tolerance of these activities, was the catalyst for the resignation.

Ruppert filed an official complaint with FBI Special Agent Stan Curry of the L.A. Field Office on December 4, 1978. This was after Ruppert was forced out of LAPD on November 30, 1978.

In 1996 Ruppert achieved some justice through his comments at a televised visit of then Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch to South Central Los Angeles. Deutch had made the trip to Los Angeles to dispel rumors in the black community that followed the publication of Gary Webb's series in the San Jose Mercury News revealing evidence of CIA connections to cocaine dealers in the city, and evidence of CIA and Contra's cocaine trafficking in the US. Webb was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist, best known for his 1996 Dark Alliance investigative report. 

In Webb's three-part series (later published as a book titled Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion), Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly distributed crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. Webb also proved that this influx of Nicaraguan supplied cocaine sparked and significantly fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas.

On November 15, 1996, Ruppert stood at the town hall meeting at Locke High School in Los Angeles and said to Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, "I am a former Los Angeles Police narcotics detective. I worked South Central Los Angeles and I can tell you, Director Deutch, emphatically and without equivocation, that the Agency has dealt drugs in this country for a long time."  He then referred Deutch to three specific CIA agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower. At the meeting, Ruppert publicly confronted Deutch, saying that in his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer he has seen evidence of CIA complicity in drug dealing for a long time.

Michael Ruppert quoted one entry from Oliver North's diary dated July 5, 1985, which said that $14 million to buy weapons for the Contras, "came from drugs." and he wouldn't need to mention the two hundred and fifty other such entries in his diary, which refer to narcotics.

On October 1, 1997, Ruppert submitted documents to the Select Intelligence Committees of both Houses. To date, it remains only a document submitted in advance of testimony and has not been placed in the Congressional Record.

Ruppert went on to become an aggressive investigator and Journalist, as well as establishing the publication From The Wilderness, a watch dog group that exposes governmental corruption, including his experience with CIA drug dealing activities.  From The Wilderness, was read, before being shut down, in more than 50 countries around the world. Its subscribers include 60-plus members of the US Congress, professors at more than 40 universities around the world, and major business and economic leaders. 

Since 9/11 Ruppert has been in demand as a university lecturer and has spoken on Peak Oil and 9/11 in nine countries. Recently, at the request of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, he served as an official questioner during a Congressional briefing looking into unanswered questions and the unaddressed flaws of the Keane 9/11 Commission report.