Greg Lukianoff is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and co-author of “The War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech — and Why They Fail.”

On the night of Thursday, June 25, a phone call roused David Streever from his jet-lag-induced sleep in a New York hotel. It was the front desk. The clerk told Streever that a federal agent had been looking for him. Streever checked his voicemail. There were two messages, one from a male caller and another from a female, saying “Homeland Security Investigations” wanted to talk.

This was not news to Streever.

Two days earlier, two Homeland Security special agents had appeared at his front door in Rochester, New York. They told his wife they were looking for him because he “may or may not have sent an email” threatening the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They handed her a document with “WARNING NOTICE” printed at the top. She told them her husband was in Europe on vacation with their 7-year-old daughter. She did not tell them he would be in a New York hotel on Thursday, but the agents somehow found him there anyway.

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