Is Governor Nixon intimidating Sunshine requestors?

Everyone has heard about the Missouri Highway Patrol & the Dept of Public Safety getting egg on their faces over the MIAC “confidential report,” they sent out to law enforcement agencies. The report noted that domestic terrorists are often supporters of Ron Paul, pro-lifers or 3rd party candidates.

One thing that has not been disclosed about this “confidential report” is where it came from. The MIAC claimed it was publicly available information. The so-called “publicly available information” sounded suspiciously like the materials of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC presents itself as a “tolerance” group (fighting “hate”) and have been quietly feeding their “domestic terrorism” material to law enforcement for many years. When I was a prosecutor I saw this first hand. They are perfectly happy with grouping their political enemies (conservatives and libertarians like Ron Paul) in with Nazis and the KKK.

The MIAC report was an outrageous bit of work and has no place in a free country. Most people agreed. The report was roundly denounced from ALMOST every direction, the exception being Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, who originally supported the report even though he hadn’t read it. If you haven’t read it, you can read it here: Secret State Police Report: Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Libertarians are Terrorists

Last week, the State was forced to apologize and withdraw the report. Even Nixon was running away and pointing the blame at others. No surprise here.

But now a very disturbing report has come out of St Louis about a citizen who on March 23 faxed a Sunshine request to Governor Nixon’s office requesting information about the MIAC report.

Within six hours, two of the man’s friends were being questioned about his political beliefs by law enforcement. Within a few days, seven of the man’s friends had been interrogated by police, obviously because he had the audacity and imprudence to exercise his right to request information from the government. Read the story here: Is Nixon Abusing His Power?

Now, unless this fellow made threats in a sunshine request (which is hard to imagine) this behavior by the State is unconscionable. What’s next? Midnight shakedowns and no-knock warrants? No citizen should ever have to fear the government for exercising his statutory rights. Something must be done.