John Doe and Gendarmes

We don't have secret police, necessarily. We do have secret agendas, as David French reports in an astonishing article in National Review:

That was the first thought of “Anne” (not her real name). Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble.  

“It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.”  

She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. “People 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.”

Who were these people?

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’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information. 

Why were the police at Anne’s home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they’d seen police treat drug dealers on television. 

In fact, TV or movies were their only points of reference, because they weren’t criminals. They were law-abiding. They didn’t buy or sell drugs. They weren’t violent. They weren’t a danger to anyone. Yet there were cops — surrounding their house on the outside, swarming the house on the inside. They even taunted the family as if they were mere “perps.”

So what was it about?

And, yes, there were the warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone about this. Don’t tell your friends. The kids watched — alarmed — as the school bus drove by, with the students inside watching the spectacle of uniformed police surrounding the house, carrying out the family’s belongings. Yet they were told they couldn’t tell anyone at school.

They, too, had to remain silent.

The mom watched as her entire life was laid open before the police. Her professional files, her personal files, everything. She knew this was all politics. She knew a rogue prosecutor was targeting her for her political beliefs.

And she realized, “Every aspect of my life is in their hands. And they hate me.”

Yes, yes they do. They are the denizens of what Glenn Reynolds calls the Deep State. They are prosecutors and bureaucrats and agency heads. And in Wisconsin, where these things took place, they could get by with their behavior because they had the John Doe statute available, and because they needed to stop Scott Walker from tearing their playhouse down.

The original reason for the John Doe statute, which gives broad power to prosecutors to conduct investigations in secrecy. The idea behind the statute is that a potential target of the investigation won't realize they are being investigated and won't be able to conceal evidence. In practice, it's been plenty abusive. It also explains why the people who were being investigated were required to keep silent about what was happening to them.

Writing for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel last year, columnist Christian Schneider explained what was going on:

In theory, giving broad, secretive investigative power to a single individual may sound efficient. Keeping everyone in the dark allows the district attorney to dig up evidence before alleged lawbreakers even know they should be hiding it. But the process also can be abused if used as a tool of political retribution and personal score-settling.

This especially has been the case recently, when the John Doe law's secrecy requirements have been largely ignored, belying the intent behind the anonymous "John Doe" moniker. Leaks have served to prosecute conservatives in the court of public opinion when actual evidence is insufficient. Names of those called to testify routinely bleed into the press, casting a dark cloud over large numbers of individuals, whether they are directly related to the investigation or not. 

The whole thing may be coming to an end soon. The prosecutor behind these abuses, Milwaukee County's John Chisholm, has come up empty. The state Supreme Court will rule on what happened. A federal court may allow one of the targets of the investigation to sue the prosecutors.

At this point, the story isn't well known. National Review is an opinion journal. The coverage we've seen in the major media in Wisconsin has been more about the allegations the prosecutors have leaked than about the abusive measures the prosecutors have taken. It's starting to come out now. It's going to be a huge story in Wisconin, and it's going to be a big part of Scott Walker's narrative as he mounts his presidential bid.