Wisconsin's Shame: 'John Doe' Investigations Halted by State Supreme Court | National Review Online:
Finds prosecutors raided conservatives’ homes to investigate constitutionally protected free speech. In a ruling this morning, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rendered official what observers have long known:
Wisconsin Democrats did, in fact, launch a massive, multi-county “John Doe” investigation of the state’s conservatives, featuring extraordinarily broad subpoenas and coordinated “paramilitary” raids of private homes; the “crimes” that provided the investigation’s pretext were not crimes at all, but First Amendment-protected speech;
and the legal theory underpinning the investigation was bunk, “unsupported in either reason or law,” as the court put it.
...
The court was obviously disturbed:
The breadth of the documents gathered pursuant to subpoenas and seized pursuant to search warrants is amazing.
Millions of documents, both in digital and paper copy, were subpoenaed and/or seized.
Deputies seized business papers, computer equipment, phones, and other devices, while their targets were restrained under police supervision and denied the ability to contact their attorneys.
The special prosecutor obtained virtually every document possessed by the Unnamed Movants relating to every aspect of their lives, both personal and professional, over a five-year span (from 2009 to 2013).
Such documents were subpoenaed and/or seized without regard to content or relevance to the alleged violations of Ch. 11.
As part of this dragnet, the special prosecutor also had seized wholly irrelevant information, such as retirement income statements, personal financial account information, personal letters, and family photos.
The raid victims have suffered severe, long-term consequences as a result of these raids.
Almost to a person, they say they no longer feel secure in their own homes.
They report watching what they say, terrified that overt political involvement could lead their homes to be invaded again.
One victim said, “I tried to create a home where the kids always feel safe.
Now they know they’re not.
They know men with guns can come in their house, and there’s nothing we can do.”
Another victim — whose son was home alone when police arrived, guns drawn — is haunted by this chilling thought: “He could have been in the shower.
They could have broken the door down.
He could have been shot.
Over politics...”
