I have great respect for Glen Reynolds, but I think he’s wrong when he describes the questioning by federal authorities of filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula over a potential parole violation, as “brownshirted enforcers” out to exact vengeance “on a man who made a film that made the Obama Administration uncomfortable.” Reynolds is referring to this picture of Nakoula as he his led away early on the morning of September 15 from his California home by “brownshirted” sheriff’s deputies:

Reynolds goes on to write, quoting one of his readers:

MORE STILL: Reader Jack Moody writes:
Prosecuting someone because they broke the law is one thing.
Only prosecuting someone who broke the law, after they embarrassed the administration, is gangster government, extortion, and the road to totalitarianism.
And that’s pretty clearly what’s happened here. Though to be fair, they didn’t actually prosecute him. Just took him downtown to answer a few questions. Voluntarily. After midnight. With a lot of TV cameras there, somehow.

No, that’s not what happened here. Reynolds actually links to this Los Angeles Times piece that gives a better description of what went down:

[Updated at 1:40 a.m. July 15, 2012: Whitmore told The Times that Nakoula was taken in for a voluntary interview with probation officials and has not been arrested or detained.]
Authorities waited until most media had left for the day to take Nakoula in.
Earlier Friday, sheriff’s deputies had to escort attorneys through a scrum of news cameras into Nakoula’s home. When the man was taken away early Saturday, authorities had to dodge only a lone photographer for The Times and a few lingering reporters.

The Times includes a video of a link to local TV coverage to back up their reporting. This is not “gangster government’ or an “after midnight raid.” It’s an effort by the sheriff’s department to take Nakoulla in for legitimate questioning, without the media there, all while trying to keep his face off of the news. Additionally, Nakoula had his attorneys with him at the home. He was taken away, questioned for 90 minutes and released. To quote the sheriff’s office, “He is gone. We don’t know where he went.”

If that means we’re a police state, we’re doing it wrong.

But there is still the very legitimate question of what was the government doing investigating the people behind the film in the first place? What business is it of the government who made the movie? A plausible answer is the FBI was worried about the safety of those involved. Rene Veluzat, who owns the property where scenes from the movie were filmed, was interviewed by the FBI and told the Hollywood Reporter that the FBI’s concern was for the safety of those involved as their names were about to become public:

The FBI and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were interviewing Veluzat on Thursday, and Veluzat told The Hollywood Reporter that both law-enforcement agencies instructed him not to speak with the press or other interested parties about what he knows about The Innocence of Muslims.
Sources close to the investigation say they’re hoping Veluzat can, among other information, provide clarity as to the real names of the filmmakers. The Innocence of Muslims filmed Aug. 18, 2011, at Blue Cloud under the name Desert Warrior. The producer was listed in the film permit as Sam Bossil, though it’s an alias (reports also have identified him as Sam Bacile).
According to Film L.A., the county is holding the film permit under lock and key for now while it alerts those who are named on it that their identities — assuming they are real — are about to made public. Insiders say law-enforcement officials are concerned for the safety of the filmmakers once their true identities are known.

The next day the AP outed Sam Bossil/Bacile as Nakoulla, who to this point had been telling the media that not only was he responsible for the film, but he was an Israeli Jew who financed the anti-Muslim movie with the support of 100 Jewish investors. It’s at this point that federal authorities figure out he’s a felon on parole.

Listen. I’m a free-speech absolutist, but, the man at the center of The Innocence of Muslims brought this upon himself. Nakoula is a serial criminal who served time for meth possession, returned to prison for violating his probation regarding the meth conviction and found himself in the spotlight this weekend because it came to light — through his own lies — that he had possibly committed another parole violation in regard to his 2010 no contest plea to federal charges of bank fraud.

ABC reported that Nakoula is “scared to death” for his family. Maybe the FBI was onto something in trying to find those named on the film permit and warn them of the risk?

And of note, it was CNN and others in the media and not the sheriff’s department who splashed Nakoula’s picture to the world.

One question I have for Nakoula is why he posed has a Jew. The simplest explanation is he knew there’d be hell to pay for the film — Iran has already jumped in and announced they’re coming after him — and he thought by posing as a Jew, he could give the Muslim world its favorite target. Disgusting.

Nakoula has every right to say whatever he wants and to make whatever crappy movie he wants. But if you cross a line, like lying and pretending to be Jewish in order to help your anti-Muslim movie get media attention, well then, I’m not going to complain about your 90 minutes of inconvenience while federal authorities try to determine if you belong back in jail.