Apparent ideological adversaries are spoofing emergency phone calls so that armed police show up at their houses.
In recent days, the conservative blogosphere has been abuzz about an apparently coordinated attempt to intimidate some of its own. Patrick "Patterico" Frey, an L.A. area blogger, Erick Erickson of Red State, and Robert Stacy McCain, a conservative journalist based near Washington, D.C., all report being subject to threats and harassment as a result of posts they've written.
The most serious incident occurred last summer, though it has only recently come to light. Frey, a prosecutor by profession, was at home after midnight when someone started pounding on his front door. When he opened it, he found several police officers with guns drawn ordering him out of the house. "I had a cell phone in my hand," he writes. "Fortunately, they did not mistake it for a gun." They were at the house because someone had called 911, spoofed Frey's home phone number, impersonated him, and spoke as if he was confessing to having shot and killed his wife. Police arrived on scene poised to confront an armed killer. Frey was cuffed in front of his neighbors. His wife was awoken, taken outside, and frisked. His children were awoken by police going into their bedrooms to make sure that they were okay. It was a nightmare.