Freedom of speech and the press took two steps forward and one back Tuesday. The good news came from Wisconsin, where U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randa put an end to the infamous “John Doe” investigation unleashed last year by vengeful local Democrats against political activist Eric O’Keefe, the Wisconsin chapter of Club for Growth and 28 other conservative political groups. Led by Milwaukee County Attorney John Chisholm, Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz and three others, the defendants used police-state tactics to gather evidence of alleged campaign finance crimes and slapped a gag order on O’Keefe and the other targets to prevent them from telling anybody but their lawyers what was happening.

The “crime” O’Keefe and the others were alleged to have committed was taking positions shared by Gov. Scott Walker during his 2012 recall election campaign and creating issue ads advocating those positions to voters. The Democrats claimed that constituted illegal campaign coordination under Wisconsin law.