M. Catharine Evans, American Thinker
A federal court has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit filed by The Rutherford Institute on behalf of a decorated Marine veteran from Virginia. U.S District Judge Henry Hudson called Brandon Raub’s assertion that police, the FBI and the Secret Service were involved in suppressing his dissident speech “far-fetched.”
In August, 2012 uniformed county police officers showed up at Brandon Raub’s front door. They introduced Raub to several unidentified agents of the Secret Service and FBI who spoke with him concerning his anti-government Facebook posts. A few minutes later, according to the August, 2013 complaint, one of the federal agents telephoned a Chesterfield County licensed psychotherapist to discuss the situation. The therapist, without observing, meeting or evaluating Raub, recommended that he be taken into custody. Raub was subsequently handcuffed, arrested and medically cleared before being driven to a psych hospital over a hundred miles away from his home.
A circuit court judge later dismissed the petition for involuntary commitment on the grounds that it was “so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case of controversy.”
But on February 28, 2014 Judge Hudson effectively negated the allegations in the civil complaint that Raub had been a target of systematic surveillance under a Department of Homeland Security program named Operation Vigilant Eagle. What about the therapist who gave statements that prompted Raub’s arrest? Also let off the hook.
