Posted on 01/07/2016 1:35:36 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Part 315 of 314 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War
MADISON, Wis. - He walked into work Tuesday morning to find he had received an "unbelievable" notice.
Opening the manila envelope, the Wisconsin conservative learned that government agents had secretly seized his emails - professional and personal - sent and received over a two-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2009.
He found out he had, without his knowledge, been dragged into Wisconsin's notorious John Doe investigation, one of perhaps dozens of individuals who in recent days have received similar notices from former John Doe special prosecutor Francis D. Schmitz.
Some, like the conservative who spoke to Wisconsin Watchdog on Tuesday, had no idea they had been under surveillance in a massive, politically driven spy operation.
"Just unbelievable," said the conservative, who asked not to be identified. He remains active in Wisconsin politics. "It feels like a different country. It feels like something that shouldn't be done in the United States of America."
In a court filing Tuesday announcing that he had completed his court-ordered chores, Schmitz informed the Wisconsin Supreme Court that he has sent out 159 "Special Prosecutor" notices to people and organizations whose records were seized by as part of secret investigations commonly referred to as "John Doe I" and "John Doe II."
The number of court-ordered notices underscores how widespread the abusive investigation was.
"Over the last two days, I've spoken to people who just learned that prosecutors are in possession of several years of their email and other records," said Deborah Jordahl, one of dozens of conservatives targeted or spied on in John Doe II. "They are not high profile people and they are not all directly connected to organizations or activities that formed the basis of the investigation."
Jordahl, whose home was raided by armed agents in the early morning hours of Oct. 3, 2013, said the people she has spoken to "are in shock and I feel terrible for them."
"They have that awful pit in their stomach knowing their privacy has been violated and their property taken without their knowledge," she said. Investigators illegally seized untold thousands of records from Jordahl and her business partner, R.J. Johnson, even before John Doe II officially commenced in early September 2012.
John Doe II, the illegal investigatory offspring of the first John Doe into former aides and associates of Gov. Scott Walker when Walker was Milwaukee County executive, was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court twice last year - the decisive ruling coming on Dec. 2. In that decision, the court concluded Schmitz's position as special prosecutor was invalid from its inception and ordered him to notify the people whom agents secretly investigated. Schmitz is to return physical property to its rightful owners. The ruling also ordered the prosecutor to hand over reams of records to the court, amounting to millions of documents, for safe keeping while other legal matters are sorted out.
Schmitz's letter does not make clear precisely how many individuals or groups received notices because, as he footnotes, "More than one individual received more than one notice." In other words, individuals with records seized from multiple accounts could have received multiple emails.
Those are the kinds of legal games the special prosecutor has played during his 2 1/2 years at the helm of the multi-county campaign finance probe. Much of that time he presided over an investigation stalled by the John Doe judge, who in January 2014 told prosecutors they had presented no probable cause that any crimes had been committed. The judge quashed the subpoenas and warrants used in the October 2013 raids - strong-arm tactics used in the name of a fatally flawed campaign finance probe into dozens of conservative groups and Walker's campaign.
The conservative who first learned Tuesday that investigators had tapped into his emails said the notice from Schmitz made his skin crawl.
"I know I didn't do anything wrong, but it always makes you wonder, well, why am I receiving this?" he said. "Are they still watching me? Why were they watching me in the first place? Why did they want these records? What did they do with my records? Do they still have them? Are they going to destroy them? Who has seen these records? It starts to make you wonder in the age we live in, where are your personal details going?"
As Wisconsin Watchdog has detailed in its series, "Wisconsin's Secret War," Schmitz and his partners in the five-county John Doe investigation operated an extensive spy operation targeting state and national conservatives.
A December 2012 affidavit reveals that Milwaukee County prosecutors sought and received secret subpoenas or warrants to seize the email, phone, and text records of 17 people. The subpoenas and warrants were served on a multitude of Internet service providers and cellular phone providers, including AT&T, Google and Yahoo.
With the assistance of the service providers, investigators confiscated 19 months of communications, from Jan. 1, 2011, through July 31, 2012.
The 19-month time period outlined in the warrants and subpoenas began two days before Walker's first-term inauguration as governor.
Court documents obtained in October by the Wall Street Journal show the state Government Accountability Board worked with the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office in probing several national conservatives.
"The John Doe team searched the digital cache for information related to their now-discredited theory of campaign-finance coordination, but they didn't stop there. The Milwaukee District Attorney's office, run by Democrat John Chisholm, sent GAB staff a spreadsheet of search terms that included prominent national conservatives," the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in the opinion piece.
The spreadsheet includes the names and personal email addresses of former Florida governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan; Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, also of Wisconsin; Fox News host Sean Hannity; and even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, according to the Wall Street Journal.
What we are now learning from those who have received notice is that the John Doe investigation appears to have been what critics have long characterized it to be: a political fishing expedition.
"In many cases, prosecutors seized records from individuals and organizations for a time period covering January of 2009 through October of 2013, even though the prosecutors were supposedly investigating activities related to recall elections that took place in the summer of 2011 and 2012," Jordahl said. "Some of those individuals and the organizations they were associated with had no connection to Wisconsin during much of the time period listed on the warrants. In one case, prosecutors obtained a warrant demanding records for a time period that preceded the organization's existence."
The illegal search and seizures turned up everything from bank records to political donor lists.
"The truth is, prosecutors never made any attempt to narrow the scope of search warrants or the list of people for whom they were issued," Jordahl added.
And now one Wisconsin conservative, who says he was connected to Walker only by party and political ideology at the time he had his emails secretly confiscated, has learned he was unwittingly caught up in the political probe.
He said he takes no consolation from the strangely personal way in which the special prosecutor signed his notice: "Very truly yours, Francis D. Schmitz."
"He's not an uncle. He's not a cousin. He's not my grandfather. He's not a high school sweetheart of mine, for God's sake," the conservative source said. "And to only get a letter that says we took your electronic records and we are not going to tell you what we did with them, or if we still have them, we're not going to tell you anything but that we took them, is very disturbing."
Wide network of conservatives receive notices from Francis D. Schmitz thattheir records — electronic and bank — were seized in the far reaching, illegal, John Doe investigations. No word on what was done with them.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
The only things missing from this scene are the brown shirt, the jack boots, and the red arm band with a crooked black logo. It’s hard to imagine that this could happen in this country, but unfortunately this may just be the tip of the iceberg.
The Stasi would be proud.
A year from now, our turn.
At the very least, the state should rename the “Government Accountability Board” the shorter and more apt “Stasi”.
Perhaps they should issue leather overcoats with identifying armbands to their operatives.
Bzzzt. Wrong answer.
This “John Doe” process in Wisconsin appears to walk and quack like the prohibited “Bill of attainder” and ‘Star Court/Star Chamber’ illegality and is prohibited in Federal and State law on the same proviso of ‘ex post facto’ law. In Wisconsin’s Constitution, it reads “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed, and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.” (Article I, Section 12)
The fact that the accused were not convicted does not mitigate the fact that the process, especially the order to keep silent, deprived and attainted the accused! Left unchecked, this would have permitted the executive branch, the District Attorney, to use the power of his office to restrain legal activities for indefinite periods. This deprivation of access to legal counsel and restriction of free speech in one’s own defense meets (IMHO) the definition of being attainted with crime without being able to mount a defense.
This is how “progressives” play the game. We need to stop being so nice to them.
I’ve read some more on this over the past year, or more, and it appears to be IMO a campaign with a goal of silencing the Conservative side of the political spectrum in Wisconsin. NOT unlike the weather benders trying to shut up their “denier” opposition, but with truly incredibly unlawful, unconstitutional, brazen, and arrogant tactics.
Walker made ill with their illicit control of the State, and they responded in a manner they understood. Criminal-Socialist-Democrats are to be expected to react in this manner. Crime, and arrogance are their calling.
Furthermore, the prosecutor still has not returned the records and the property confiscated, including computers and cell phones, despite court orders to do so.
I know people professionally who were subjects of the GAB, Chisholm, Schmitz overreach (not nearly a strong enough term) and when I heard there was a John Doe underway, I suspected one of these professional acquaintances might be a target, but was afraid to call or email that person because I thought I'd be then targeted by assosciation. Had that actually occurred, I think I'd consider punching Fran in the face, Even though I'm pretty big, he's even bigger than me and I'd still punch him in the face if I found he'd dug into my background. What an awful mess this became.
The next step should be the disbarring of Chisholm and Schmitz, and then a multi-million dollar suit against their holdings, savings, homes and family funds. Then, criminal prosecution and long jail sentences.
And this is not even about revenge, but only the strongest legal pushback now will prevent this from happening again.
If so, lather, rinse, repeat.
Oh, and the judges who signed the warrants—removal from the bench, and the same treatment as Chisholm and Schmitz.
Police officers should be disciplined, too. I’m not sure they should get the full treatment, but they need to know they just can’t simply obey any order if it is illegal. Those who ordered raids of homes at O’Dark Thirty (for political, white collar non-violent crimes at best) with a SWAT team should be out of a job and pension at the least.
Hopefully there are some civil suits in the making that will bankrupt those behind all this...
Yes.
Hopefully Scott Walker will man up and SWAT these scum back.
It seems to me some RICO proceedings need to be started against this enterprise.
Well, that brings it down to the personal, doesn’t it? Does Schmitz still live in C’burg?
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