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On Aug. 16, 2012, Chesterfield County, Virginia police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Brandon Raub’s home, asking to speak with him about his Facebook posts. Mr. Raub, a decorated Marine who has served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, uses his Facebook page like millions of other Americans, to post items and comments, including his political opinions.

Without providing any explanation, levying any charges or reading him his rights, law enforcement officials handcuffed Mr. Raub and transported him to police headquarters, then to John Randolph Medical Center, where he was forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward for a week against his will.

For having the temerity to express his opinions Mr. Raub was kept in custody for an evaluation based on the opinion of one Michael Campbell, a psychotherapist hired by local law enforcement that had never interviewed Mr. Raub, but somehow felt he was capable of determining that the former Marine might be a danger. Psychiatrists at the mental institution, however, found nothing wrong with him.

According to The Rutherford Institute, which is representing the former Marine, in a hearing on Aug. 20 government officials pointed to the Facebook posts as the reason for incarceration. While Mr. Raub stated that the Facebook posts were being read out of context, a Special Justice ordered that he be held up to 30 more days for psychological evaluation and treatment. But Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett ordered his immediate release a short time later because the concerns raised by the officers were “so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy.”

When the government’s case came before U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Va., he dismissed it.

Mr. Raub then sued the officers for taking him into custody without sufficient cause and for his subsequent mistreatment. A request by the offending officers to dismiss the case against them has been rejected.

“Brandon Raub’s case exposes the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that continues to target military veterans for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.

“While such targeting of veterans and dissidents is problematic enough, for any government official to suggest that they shouldn’t be held accountable for violating a citizen’s rights on the grounds that they were unaware of the Constitution’s prohibitions makes a mockery of our so-called system of representative government. Thankfully, Judge Hudson has recognized this imbalance and ensured that Brandon Raub will get his day in court,” he said.

Judge Hudson has ordered limited discovery allowing Rutherford to demand what information federal and local authorities knew about Mr. Raub before he was detained for a mental evaluation.

The Institute called the decision a victory for free speech and the right to be free from wrongful arrest and presented facts indicating that the involuntary commitment violated Mr. Raub’s rights under the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The complaint alleges that the attempt to label Mr. Raub as “mentally ill” and his subsequent involuntary commitment was a pretext designed to silence speech critical of the government.

A Richmond Times-Dispatch story noted: “Much of the information about Raub’s alleged mental condition was developed after his arrest and emergency mental assessment, but [Judge] Hudson notes in the opinion [allowing the suit against law enforcement officials] that “there is no indication that any defendant was aware of the specific contents of (emails and statements Raub was making) before Raub’s arrest."

Attorneys from The Rutherford Institute charge the seizure and detention were the result of a federal government program code-named “Operation Vigilant Eagle” that involves the systematic surveillance of military veterans who express views critical of the government, according to information on the Institute’s Web site.

Of “Operation Vigilant Eagle” the Wall Street Journal reports that “the Federal Bureau of Investigation [in 2009] launched a nationwide operation targeting white supremacists and ‘militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups,’ including a focus on veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to memos sent from bureau headquarters to field offices,” and that “a similar warning was issued … by the Department of Homeland Security.”

So, the FBI and Homeland Security view military veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan like white supremacists and extremist groups, and then on flimsy or non-existent evidence, take them into custody and confine them for mental evaluation?

It will be interesting to see how the government and these agents defend their action at trial.

Many, perhaps most Americans, are well served by state and local law enforcement that behave within the law and respect the privacy and freedom of those they serve until evidence is presented warranting arrest. However, those who initiated and carried out the persecution of Brandon Raub, including the psychotherapist, deserve to be strongly disciplined and perhaps fined and criminally charged for their illegal and unconstitutional behavior, and when the case is resolved, maybe they will be.

Such a resolution would likely get the attention federal officials who improperly unleash the force of government against innocent citizens, and restore respectful treatment of citizens by the government that exists to serve them.

Cross-posted from Observations

Before the gun smoke had dispersed at the Washington Navy Yard, the agenda media reacted with a kind of grim glee that an “assault weapon” – an AR-15 – had been used yet again in a mass shooting.

The New York Daily News devoted its entire front page to the story with the headline, “Same Gun Different Slay,” in letters so big they took up two-thirds of the page. Inside the publication was an anti-gun column by Mike Lupica titled, “AR-15 is the rifle for the ‘sport’ of hunting humans.”

MSNBC even used an animation of the shooting, featuring an AR-15, while CNN's Piers Morgan said, "He was carrying an AR-15 assault rifle, another rifle, and a handgun.”

The Washington Post asked how the suspected shooter, Aaron Alexis, acquired “his weapons (an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol were reportedly found on him).”

Some of this results from the drive to get news out first. But hardly all of it.

And then, of course, the politicians got into the act.

“A gunman appeared with an assault rifle, and several other weapons,” said Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin on the Senate floor.

California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein released a statement which read, “This is one more event to add to the litany of massacres that occur when a deranged person or grievance killer is able to obtain multiple weapons — including a military-style assault rifle — and kill many people in a short amount of time.”

Even the hallowed halls of academia were not immune to the ranting of the unhinged. (surprise, surprise, surprise!!)

“#NavyYardShooting The blood is on the hands of the #NRA,” tweeted David Guth, an associate professor of Journalism at the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism. “Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters,” he continued. “Shame on you. May God damn you.”

To its credit, the University suspended Guth. With such as this in journalism classrooms, it’s no wonder there is bias in the news media.

“The contents of Guth’s tweet were repugnant and in no way represent the views or opinions of the University of Kansas,” an official statement said. Whether UK works like the federal government, and keeps suspended misbehavers on the payroll, it didn’t say.

Well, Sen. Feinstein, Sen. Durbin, Prof. Guth, et al, we certainly have had enough of these incidents. But we’ve also had enough of you folks and your mis-informing cronies in the media allowing your emotions and your prejudices to commandeer your thought process and produce automatic responses that are so grossly wrong.

The shooter had only his own recently and legally acquired shotgun when he started the rampage, and is thought to have taken a handgun from one of his security officer victims along the way. No “assault rifle” was involved.

Moving from the thoughtless responses of these demagogues to the somber realities and serious issues that exist, we need to recognize that the most serious of these is clearly not a need for more gun control.

Washington, DC has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and the Navy Yard prohibits weapons being carried by anyone except for military police and other law enforcement and security personnel; not even trained military personnel who may carry weapons when they are deployed can carry a weapon on the Yard.

Alexis, who worked for a civilian contractor at the Navy Yard, had a history of arrests for weapons violations and mental health issues. Except for him, the military and civilian personnel assigned to and working at the Navy Yard obeyed the rules and didn’t bring guns to the Yard. Stronger gun laws would have made no difference at all.

Like gun-free schools without armed security, gun-free military bases have become shooting galleries for people who do not obey gun control laws and want to do bad things.

All kinds of screw-ups took place here, among which are:

**Lousy security checks – Given his criminal and mental health past, how was Alexis able to legally obtain the shotgun and a security clearance?

**Dumb rules about weapons on military facilities – On both Ft. Hood and the Navy Yard, had military personnel carried weapons, the shooters might never have planned those attacks, but they almost certainly would have done far less damage.

**The base security staff was undermanned when the shooting started, and had to close the gates to the base so they could respond to the emergency, and that interfered with civilian police trying to get on the base to help.

**Media knee-jerk misinformation appears to have emanated from an anti-gun mentality that leads to a shoot first, get details later process.

At least the media didn’t try to associate Alexis with TEA Party organizations or the Republican Party, as has often occurred in the past; they would have been wrong about that, too. A friend of Aaron Alexis, Michael Ritrovato, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he was “more of a liberal type, not conservative like I am.”

Let’s hold our breath to see how the mediadistort the coming debate over raising the debt ceiling yet again and a possible government shutdown.