Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Waco, and now-

Eldorado- Where they put the torch to the Constitution of the United States under the bright spotlight of international media attention, against an unlikable group of people .

It looks like they are going to get away with it.

Next?

"Permanent termination of parental rights has been described as "the family law equivalent of the death penalty in a criminal case." In re Smith (1991), 77 Ohio App.3d 1, 16, 601 N.E.2d 45, 54. Therefore, parents "must be afforded every procedural and substantive protection the law allows."

Then what has happened at Eldorado was a MASS EXECUTION.  Wasn't it?

For those who don't know how fostercarceration works, this means the kids are going to be doped out of their heads and mental health clinicians are going to argue with them forever..

From the Humanist Manifesto I (The bible of the politically correct, elite, intelligentsia) 

TENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.

ELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/27/0427polygamy.html

I waited a week to comment on the Texas case, separating 437 children from their FLDS parents, to see if any substantive evidence of abuse would emerge. It hasn't. Even if it had, those could have been handled individually. But no, Texas plans instead to make every member of the group pay the supreme price: to strip away their beloved children. This case is about group punishment. In spite of a search warrant tainted by a false witness (the 'Sarah' who doesn't exist), no actual specific evidence of abuse, or any unwilling participants in this polygamous compound, a self-righteous Texas judge had decreed that all 400 + children will not be returned to the custody of their parents. Texas has gone too far to rid itself of this awkward religious sect that built the 'Yearning for Zion' (YFZ) ranch in order to evade persecution in Utah and Arizona. 

As this tyrannical order clearly meant separating even nursing children from their mothers, a wave of outrage began to sweep the nation. Full Story

SAN ANGELO, Texas - The state of Texas made a damning accusation when it rounded up 462 children at a polygamous sect's ranch: The adults are forcing teenage girls into marriage and sex, creating a culture so poisonous that none should be allowed to keep their children.

But the broad sweep — from nursing infants to teenagers — is raising constitutional questions, even in a state where authorities have wide latitude for taking a family's children.

The move has the appearance of "a class-action child removal," said Jessica Dixon, director of the child advocacy center at Southern Methodist University's law school in Dallas.

"I've never heard of anything like that," she said. Full Story

It appears that some people are misunderstanding the part we are playing in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) recent raid and child removal by the Texas authorities.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62505

The Texas Kiddie Pound has a new shipment of cute, cuddly, perfect pets.  

Have your own little Laura Ingalls Wilder! 
 
NO ADD! NO ADHD!  NO Behavior Problems!  No acne.  No diabetes.  No obesity.  No STD's

Great genetics!  Perfect children, unspoiled, uncorrupted, obedient, well-behaved, responsible, hard- working.  No back-sass. No rebellion!  No computer game freaks.  No TV-addicted, rap-rocking, tattoos, body piercings.  No shooting up schools.  No beating up friends to get on You Tube.  No bullies, gangsters, goths, freaks, or thugs. No dopers, drunks, smokers or Brittney baby hooker emulators.  No scrounge clothes.  No pants at the knees.

Just perfect old-fashioned children.  Raised the Old Way.  How rare, priceless and unique!  

Hurry, they aren't going to stay sweet for long out here.

Why do Texas officials, especially those from Child Protective Services, seem so intent on punishing the mothers and children of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints ranch in El Dorado? The actions of Texas officials against the FLDS community in El Dorado may be a tragedy in the making, at least for the moms and kids concerned. The officials' raid and attempt to remove the children from their mothers has the potential of seriously harming these 416 children for the rest of their lives.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that either officials were duped into obtaining a false warrant or obtained a warrant for which they knew there was no reasonable factual basis. The evidence CPS has so far is slim, to say the least, and even that questionable evidence may have been manufactured.

Full Story

In the Texas government's war against the women and children of the FLDS Church, Colorado Springs resident Rozita Swinton, a 33-year-old woman (a precinct delegate for the El Paso County Democratic Party who intends to vote for Barack Obama at the state convention in May), is "Curveball." That was the code-name of a veteran con artist whose patently false intelligence provided the pretext for a the Iraq invasion. In this case, "Curveball" was "Sarah," the purported 16-year-old FLDS polygamist wife who called a domestic abuse hotline and set in motion the invasion of the sect's YFZ Ranch commune in El Dorado.

And once the government that carried out the assault had what it needed -- first, access to the children, and then physical possession of the same -- it blithely disavowed any need to obey the law and demonstrated its disinclination to "re-litigate" the issue. Oh, yes, the initial raid was based on an affidavit containing third-party hearsay from a bogus source, but that is of little moment in post-Constitutional Amerika.

It doesn't really matter how or why the original raid took place, y'see. What really matters now is that the effort succeed. Now that the FLDS Children are in state custody, everybody simply has to support the government's efforts to see that they receive the care they need. After all, our protectors would have taken such a drastic step as the seizure of all 416 children unless it had been absolutely necessary. What else could be done when a 16-year-old "plural wife" is being beaten and abused...

Oh, yeah. That's right -- there was no 16-year-old "Sarah."

...From the available photographic evidence, the FLDS children are healthy, active, and untouched by the modern plague of childhood obesity. They were schooled at home and spent most of each day involved in vigorous physical labor and energetic recreation. Their diet was barren of processed foods and consisted of such fare as home-grown vegetables and bread made from freshly ground wheat.

...No longer will the prospect of polygamy becloud the future for the FLDS girls. Thanks to the benevolent coercion exercised by the State of Texas, those girls will be free to emulate the Lone Star State's racoon-eyed exemplars of modern Christian womanhood -- the Simpson sisters, Jessica and Ashlee.

...The FLDS children living at YFZ Ranch had been denied the blessings of our degenerate late-imperial culture. Blessed be the Regime, and all of its appendages, for rescuing those children from such cruel social isolation!

...Update: Unfathomable Cruelty

The Texas Department of Child Abduction, sometimes wittily referred to as the Department of Protective and Family Services, has announced that as soon as it has extracted DNA samples from the FLDS child captives they will be placed in foster care. In many instances this will require tearing newborn or nursing infants out of the arms of their mothers:

"Some FLDS mothers with nursing babies and toddlers may be unaware that they will be forced to leave their children behind once Texas officials gather the DNA samples from them. `I don't know how many mothers have babies, but I would say there are dozens of mothers who are nursing little ones,' said Monica Jessop, whose five children between the ages of 3 and 11 are in state custody. `I'm sure they don't know they will be separated.'"

As with every other act of government coercion, this unspeakably cruel crime will be accompanied by the threat of lethal violence.

Full Story-
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/04/quid-spucatum-tauri-est.html

I'm not buying their story about being ignorant.  If they were honest, the story would be more like "We pushed our luck too far".  Unless- How publicized WAS the passage of the new marriage age law?

Sun April 20, 2008
ACLU weighs in on Texas polygamist custody case

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- The Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said it was concerned that the basic rights of the children and mothers connected to a Texas polygamist ranch were violated during a recent raid and custody hearing.

At the hearing Friday, Judge Barbara Walther ordered 416 children connected to the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) ranch kept in state custody.

Walther made her ruling after two days of testimony at the hearing, which was aimed at determining whether child welfare authorities properly removed the children from the sect's Texas ranch. The judge said she found sufficient evidence for Texas Child Protective Services to retain custody of the children.

The ACLU said it had a representative at the court hearing and the organization was concerned about human rights violations.

"While we acknowledge that Judge Walther's task may be unprecedented in Texas judicial history, we question whether the current proceedings adequately protect the fundamental rights of the mothers and children," Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, said in a written statement.

"As this situation continues to unfold, we are concerned that the constitutional rights that all Americans rely upon and cherish -- that we are secure in our homes, that we may worship as we please and hold our places of worship sacred, and that we may be with our children absent evidence of imminent danger -- have been threatened," Burke said. 

The group's courtroom observer, Lisa Graybill, added: "We recognize that this balancing act is difficult, but we are concerned that government may not be complying with the Constitution or the laws of Texas in the execution of its mandate, from how the raids were conducted to whether the current process protects basic rights."

Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said her department is in the process of finding "temporary placement" for all the children. "What we did was warranted and in the best interest of the children," she said. "This is not about religion -- this is about keeping children safe from abuse."

ACLU sounds like a spoon clanking on a tin can to me.  

I would say unequivocally that Texas has (so far) DEFINITELY boot-scoot boogied the First, and did a square-dance across the Fourth, Fifth Amendments, and they are feverishly working up a pirouette around the Sixth and Seventh. 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/20/polygamy.sect/index.html

YFZ RANCH - Texas Department of Family and Protective Services officials have found placements (?) for the 416 Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints children temporarily housed in San Angelo, but they are waiting to move the children until court-ordered DNA testing of them is completed.

The children likely won't be relocated until the middle of the week, Shari Pulliam, a spokeswoman for the department, said Saturday morning.

"We're just working out the details and logistics of that," Pulliam said.

The testing could begin as soon as Monday, she said.

Full Story-
http://gosanangelo.com/news/2008/apr/19/officials-placements-found-for-flds-children/

By the way, this cartoon was from Will and Pamela  Gaston in OREGON, and it is AT LEAST ten years old.

So there you have it, all together in one story.  THEY KNEW that a FALSE ALLEGATION from an anonymous source was what they acted on when they raided the FLDS.  

So much for probable cause.  

And now we OFFICIALLY KNOW that what a psychiatrist says trumps the Constitution.  Especially if he "lost sleep" over it. 

If I was the leader of FLDS, I would be smart enough to have a convenient "revelation" (just like the president, seer, and prophet of LDS did in 1890) that

• nobody gets married until they are 18 years old, 
• nobody has more kids than THEY CAN PAY to support, and 
• the young guys get to marry their sweetheart as long as she isn't his first cousin.  

Nobody could seriously argue against polygamy in any westernized country NOW, where serialized whoredom, polyamorous paganism, and out-of-wedlock child birth is the norm

http://familyrights.us/news/archive/2008/april/flds/children_stay_in_custody.htm

Rozita Swinton

A 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman has been questioned about a telephone call that sparked a raid at the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in western Texas two weeks ago.

Rozita Swinton was arrested at her home Wednesday night by Colorado Springs police for an incident that occurred in February. Members of the Texas Rangers were also in Colorado Springs as part of their investigation.

Full Story-
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=61963

Anybody who has been in a CPS office knows the meaning of "scary environment".  She mentions she had heard a tank was coming.  Perhaps she was "concerned" about being there if the govt went nuts again and "WACO'ed" the place.  UPDATE- Turns out this CPS worker WAS at Waco!

(CBS/AP)  A court hearing in Texas to decide the fates of hundreds of children seized from a polygamist retreat ground to a halt almost as soon as it began Thursday as hundreds of lawyers demanded to study the first piece of evidence before it could be introduced.

State District Judge Barbara Walther called a recess 40 minutes after the hearing began in what could be the nation's largest child custody case. She wanted to allow the 350 lawyers spread out in two buildings to read the evidence and decide whether to object en masse or make individual objections.

The lawyers are representing the 416 children and dozens of parents from the Yearning For Zion ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect accused of forcing underage girls into polygamous marriages.

The courtroom and a satellite courtroom set up in an auditorium two blocks away were jammed with dozens of mothers from the retreat, dressed in pastel prairie dresses and braided upswept hair.

The mothers were sworn in as witnesses, standing and mumbling their 'I do's' in timid voices. As they sat silently, the flock of lawyers was constantly buzzing with murmurs and popping up to make motions or object.

But when prosecutors tried to enter into evidence the medical records of three girls - two 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old - the lawyers jumped to their feet trying to see the papers. That's when the judge called the recess.

Full Story-
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/17/national/main4021790.shtml

Flora Jessop says she ran away from a polygamist sect in 1986 after being married to her cousin.

CNN (CNN) -- Long after she escaped a polygamist Colorado City, Arizona, community in 1986, Flora Jessop found another way to escape: cocaine.

"It killed the pain. It killed the hurt," she said. "I didn't have to hurt so bad because I missed everything I knew."

Once she fled the fundamentalist Mormon sect, she was an apostate. She believed God hated her. Her parents and siblings thought she was wicked. Worst of all, she knew she was damned to hell, Jessop said.

Jessop, then 17, began hitchhiking across the country, almost killed herself with cocaine, worked as a topless dancer and eventually became pregnant, she said.

Fearing that church members would hunt her down, she looked over her shoulder for five years, she said. She occasionally drank alcohol -- she liked tequila best -- but preferred to use cocaine because it kept her alert.

"When you're running for your life, you can't afford to get to the point you cannot run," she said.

Are you believing this?  Why on earth would they WANT the rotten little witch?

Full Story-
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/16/polygamy.escapes/index.html

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- A Delta County undersheriff says he did not see anything suspicious when he visited a ranch owned by a member of a polygamous sect.

"What we saw was just a single-family residence," Mark Taylor said of the Crawford-area ranch of Neph Barlow. "There was no suspicious activity at all. There was nothing for us to be concerned with."

Barlow confirmed he is a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a group led by Warren Jeffs, county Commissioner Olen Lund said after the visit Monday.

Jeffs was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape in an arranged marriage involving a 14-year-old girl and an older cousin.

Barlow's neighbors alerted the FBI and Sheriff Fred McKee to the ranch after an FLDS compound in Texas was raided when a teen there reported being abused by her 50-year-old husband.

Lund, Taylor and Sheriff Fred McKee visited the 35-acre property at Barlow's invitation.

"Basically, there's a lot going on and wild speculation going on, and he asked us to come look at (the ranch) rather than having it continue or become to be built up bigger as a speculative thing," Lund said.

FBI agent Jane Quimby said the FBI and the sheriff's office are not investigating Barlow.

Barlow bought the property in mid-2007, according to county records. McKee said Barlow told the county that he plans to build two additional single-family homes.

Lund said Barlow told county officials that he grew up in a church compound in Colorado City, Ariz.

"He introduced us to the kids and his wife," Lund said.

http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_8947036

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8941294

Comments: 

What in heaven's name is this going to achieve - to take these children away rather than to help, assist and supervise and re-build their relationship? I think it is just awful - only in America.

- Rachel, Ipswich

So, the heavy hand of the State comes into full play, children torn from their mothers and their community, on the say so of an anonymous phone call. It looks to me like the authorities were all to ready to attack a community they didn't like without any regard for evidence.

If there is abuse, it is the abuser who should be taken away and isolated, not the victims. These children will be terribly traumatised by these actions.

Let's hope it doesn't give our own social workers ideas, they'll be descending on whole streets, housing estates, and villages en masse to haul our children away. We should all be afraid if Texas gets away with this.

- Roy, Southend, UK

This was not thought out! There is not enough 'probable cause' to go in and take all these children. Not to mention the disruption of the lives of all these women. This should have been handled by direct negotiations over time. How can these women be culpable for their situations. Now, I suppose, the state of Texas will turn them from polygamists into good little leftists. They will be taught to take drugs; have babies out of wedlock and/or abortions.

- Richard Morant, UK

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=559808&in_page_id=1811&in_page_id=1811&expand=true#StartComments

Welcome to Slipperyslopeville, Texas! It’s Close to Waco
by Bill Huff
April 15, 2008

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080415/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_retreat

We need a cartoon of the Amendments to the Constitution on a wall, with spray paint vandalism all over it.  Because that's what has happened. - Leonard Henderson

The allegations of abuse of a girl is no excuse for kidnapping hundreds of children and breaking up their families:

The leader of the Yearning For Zion Ranch says he doesn't understand how the government could sweep in and seize all their children based on an unproven allegation.

"This whole situation is abusive and out of hand," said Merril Jessop, a presiding elder in the FLDS Church. "The nearest thing I have ever seen comparable to this, even on the TV shows, is Nazi Germany."

"The only thing we ask of the governor and citizens of Texas," Jessop said, "is to give every man, woman and child due process and an attorney before they destroy their lives."

As usual, good intentions pave the road to Hell. The irony is that those who are supportive the government seizing these children on the basis of allegations of a sexually abused fifteen-year old are often the same people who argue a fifteen-year old girl is mature enough to have sex and get an abortion without parental consent. Now, I'm not a big fan of the Mormon religion or its variants myself. 

But that doesn't mean that it is right to look the other way as these Americans' unalienable and Constitutional rights are trampled and their children are forcibly kidnapped by government agents!

About the only positive thing you can say about it is that unlike Waco, the government forces didn't kill them all. 

This is not America, this is the decaying corpse of what was once America.

How long will it be before the first child is seized based on evidence of abuse that consists of ownership of a book that advocates the "hitting" a misbehaving child?

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-excuse.html

Stung by critics who say Utah has done little about the polygamy problem, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff suggested Utah's crackdown on abuses within the closed societies may have ultimately led to the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's Texas compound.

"They wouldn't have gone to Texas if they hadn't been running away from us," he said in a recent interview with the Deseret News. "They went to Texas to flee when we started cracking down."

...Shurtleff said he had no plans to conduct a similar mass-scale raid on the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

"And do what? Arrest thousands of polygamists in Utah? We wouldn't have 400 kids, we'd have thousands in our foster care and thousands of their parents in the prison system. It's not practical to do that," Shurtleff said. "We were right to focus on abused children.

...Even now, Shurtleff questions the decision by Texas authorities in removing all 416 children from the FLDS Church's YFZ Ranch.

"There is that sweeping statement that they've concluded as a matter of law that if you're a child in a polygamous family, that alone means you're abused," Shurtleff said. "We've never concluded that here."

On April 17, a hearing will be held in San Angelo, Texas, during which Child Protective Services will have to justify to a judge why all 416 children should remain in state protective custody.

Full Story
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695270178,00.html

Dale Evans Barlow was accused in April 2008 of beating and having sex with a young teenage girl at a polygamist compound in Texas.

http://www.kutv.com/content/news/topnews/story.aspx?content_id=d8eecfb2-0174-4aed-bfcc-b9854fa6cffa

Copyright 2008 Four Points.

Colorado City CPS phone call resembles one made in Texas
One led to raid, one didn't
Amanda J. Crawford
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 11, 2008 12:00 AM

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0411cps0411.html

Posted: 9:29 AM- SAN ANGELO, Texas --- Sounding weary and anxious, Merrill Jessop spoke briefly to The Salt Lake Tribune Tuesday about the law enforcement investigation now in its fifth day at the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado.

Jessop, who oversees the ranch and is a presiding elder in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said a sizeable law enforcement force remains at the ranch.

He said the ability to communicate with those outside -- and family members taken from the ranch -- is rapidly diminishing as officers confiscate cell phones "as fast as they find them."

Tom Green County District Judge Barbara Walther issued a new search warrant Sunday that allows officers to take away cell phones and other communication devices.

Jessop said that those at the ranch have no Internet or television access and have no way to know what has become of the 133 women and 401 children taken from the ranch since last Thursday. He expressed concern for their well-being.

"There needs to be a public outcry that goes far and wide," he said. "What's coming we don't know. The hauling off of women and children matches anything in Russia or Germany."

...Back at Fort Concho, media watched as a group of 9 young boys were walking around a grassy parade field. The boys approached the fence at one end of the field, where reporters called out to ask if they were being treated well.

One young man shook his head, no. As reporters moved closer to the fence, a CPS worker called the boys back to the buildings. One older boy then appeared to be being scolded by the worker.

Officers then approached the media and told them to move across the street. The boys then returned to the middle of the field to play soccer.

http://origin.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_8851095

Also see April 6, 2008 Affidavit of Officer Leslie Brooks Long (not the same one as below)

...“To rip up hundreds of parents and children and put them in a makeshift prison while you investigate to see if they did anything wrong is un-American,” said Dick DeGuerin, a lawyer who negotiated with federal authorities on behalf of David Koresh during the 51-day standoff at the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas. “It’s against every tenet of due process and violates both the U.S. and Texas constitutions.”

http://messengerandadvocate.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/texas-authorities-release-flds-raid-affidavit/

While the nightmare of confinement within a restrictive sect in West Texas may be over for more than 400 children in Texas (who are now in restrictive confinement of the government, which is an actual nightmare) , the outside world may present them with unique health threats. A dozen of the children have already been identified as being infected with chickenpox, and experts fear that the outbreak could be seen by the sect's members as an ominous result of being removed from their cloistered world (a bad place?) and complicate efforts to care  for these children. (like cute puppies in a cage)

The story is a piece of trash.  What's most interesting is the reader comments-

....Marleigh Meisner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services told The Salt Lake Tribune that no one wants to talk. Very wise

    "They are very aware the media is here," she said. "They have asked us to shield them from the media, the photographs and video."  Did they?

....But any who claim to be parents will have to wait until Thursday's hearing to argue for the return of their children. No one is being allowed to visit the children, she said. Except CPS monsters and colluding psychaitrists.

    Marleigh said officials are continuing to arrange foster homes in case they are needed in the future and hope to keep sibling groups together.

    For now, the focus is gaining trust of the children, she said. These kids may be harder than usual to brainwash and deceive.  Unless you dope them out of their skulls like usual.

    "Even though they have not been safe before, they will be safe with us,"** said Meisner, whose agency is expected to argue next week the children would be at risk if returned home. They never argue anything else

http://www.sltrib.com/Polygamy/ci_8900472

Meanwhile, there is no alleged "16 year old informant" found.  Something really stinks here.

World War II Poster

Marliegh Meisner, the Face of Texas Department of Family and Protective Services or what evil incarnate looks like.  No decent human being would have this job for any amount of money

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly ruled that an anonymous tip is NEVER probable cause (one of the very few things they have been able to get right in the last 100 years). Yet it is in this case. Why is that? Where is this supposed 16 year old that called the abuse hot line? Even if these Socialist moonbats could produce this imaginary 16 year old; their so-called “probable cause” was still an anonymous tip; by their own description. Again; how is that probable cause? How absolutely outrageous.

Under what authority do these kidnappers hold 416 children? Are they claiming all of them are sexually abused? Where are these children's parents? I have absolutely no idea what was going on here.

But I know probable cause when I see it; & the absolute, total lack thereof; as well. This is a case of all knowing, benevolent government; knowing what is best for these people. These Statist whackos; who know what is best for these people, & their children; are by far; the greatest evil; & the greatest threat to freedom; this country has ever faced. Has the whole United States forgotten; Waco Texas, & Ruby Ridge?

As long as these hardcore Marxists scream "Save the children"; the United States Constitution, & the Bill of Rights; are of absolutely no consequence. Just remember: Today it is this group of polygamists; these Marxist whackos are persecuting; tomorrow it will be you. -Bob Fletche 

...Guy Murray- So, as best I can tell, the state of Texas has forcibly removed over 400 children from their parents based on a double and possibly triple hearsay affidavit of a person who does not even appear to have been present at the compound at the time authorities performed their search.  Based on the affidavit’s credible allegations, the raid appears to have been over broad and somewhat drastic.

...“To rip up hundreds of parents and children and put them in a makeshift prison while you investigate to see if they did anything wrong is un-American,” said Dick DeGuerin, a lawyer who negotiated with federal authorities on behalf of David Koresh during the 51-day standoff at the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas. “It’s against every tenet of due process and violates both the U.S. and Texas constitutions.”