Law experts appalled as cops swoop on 77-year-old for writing 'innocuous' postcard

Florida resident James O’Gara received a surprise visit from law enforcement at his home last week in what First Amendment experts have labeled a clear attempt at intimidation in response to a “pretty innocuous postcard” he had sent a government official.

“The problem is, it ends up being the government threatening a septuagenarian over a pretty innocuous postcard," said Howard Wasserman, a professor at the College of Law at Florida International University, speaking with the Tallahassee Democrat in a report published Friday.

O’Gara, 77, had mailed a postcard to Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia in response to the official’s comments about cracking down on wasteful spending made during a press conference in August. Signed with O’Gara’s name, the postcard had a handwritten message: “YOU LACK VALUES.”

And yet, while First Amendment experts describe O’Gara’s postcard as in clear protection by the First Amendment, law enforcement from the criminal division of the Florida Department of Financial Services ended up paying him a surprise visit on Oct. 1 to ask him about the note.

“At some point during their chat, he said he realized the officers' appearance ‘was just intimidation,’” writes USA Today reporter Stephany Matat in the Tallahassee Democrat’s report. “‘This was purely simple, nothing else, but intimidation.’”

A spokesperson for DFS told the Tallahassee Democrat that Ingoglia had not seen the postcard, nor was he the one who directed law enforcement to visit O’Gara’s home, and that the visit – which they dubbed a “threat assessment” – was commissioned solely by law enforcement.

For First Amendment experts, however, the visit, even without any explicit threats, was a clear violation of norms.

"It would be a different matter if it were a threat, but it's so clearly not anything (but) criticism," said Lyrissa Lidsky, a First Amendment law professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, speaking with the Tallahassee Democrat.

"We expect our government officials to have thick skin and not to use their investigative powers to try to intimidate the citizenry when they are doing exactly what the First Amendment envisions, which is criticizing their government officials."

Others, like Bobby Block, who leads the Florida organization First Amendment Foundation as its executive director, said O’Gara’s postcard was almost certainly “protected critical political speech.”

“Don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a threat to me,” Block said in a TikTok video, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.