They wouldn\u2019t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off.<\/p>\n
The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and \u2014 according to Cindy \u2014 leaving her \u201cdead mother\u2019s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop.<\/p>\n
That was the first thought of \u201cAnne\u201d (not her real name). Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning \u2014 very early \u2014 and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from \u2014 or bringing \u2014 trouble.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so hard. I\u2019d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. \u201cPeople came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling at me over and over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family\u2019s personal property, including each person\u2019s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information.<\/p>\n
Why were the police at Anne\u2019s home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they\u2019d seen police treat drug dealers on television.<\/p>\n
In fact, TV or movies were their only points of reference, because they weren\u2019t criminals. They were law-abiding. They didn\u2019t buy or sell drugs. They weren\u2019t violent. They weren\u2019t a danger to anyone. Yet there were cops \u2014 surrounding their house on the outside, swarming the house on the inside. They even taunted the family as if they were mere \u201cperps.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if the home invasion, the appropriation of private property, and the verbal abuse weren\u2019t enough, next came ominous warnings. Don\u2019t call your lawyer. Don\u2019t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends.<\/p>\n
The entire neighborhood could see the police around their house, but they had to remain silent. This was not the \u201cright to remain silent\u201d as uttered by every cop on every legal drama on television \u2014 the right against self-incrimination. They couldn\u2019t mount a public defense if they wanted \u2014 or even offer an explanation to family and friends.<\/p>\n
Yet no one in this family was a \u201cperp.\u201d Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n