This isn't really a bleeding-heart point.  But BHL is the highest-profile libertarian place I have access to for the following:

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, one of the most prominent of the state and region-level free market think tanks, has gone on a Freedom of Information Act fishing expedition for all e-mails from labor studies faculty at the University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State that mention "Scott Walker," "Wisconsin," "Madison," "Maddow," as well as "any other emails dealing with the collective bargaining situation in Wisconsin."  This is much more far-reaching than the similar inquiry launched in Wisconsin by the Republican Party.

But, frankly, I don't expect better from the Republican Party.  I've never interacted directly with Mackinac, but I would expect better from them.  The request is probably legal.  But it's wrong– invasive, inappropriate, politicizing.

The idea that the e-mail accounts of faculty at public universities are public documents in the way that the office accounts of elected officials or regulators are misunderstands the reasons for such FOIA rules (they're to ensure that the use of power over citizens is transparent, and university faculty aren't power-holders in that way), as well as basically being wrong about a resource question.  The e-mail servers are paid for by the state, but political opinions expressed by professors in their e-mail aren't a use of public resources for political ends.  Rather, the provision of university e-mail helps keep faculty on the clock around the clock.  The old rules that were so worries about a university employee using a university envelope for a political cause aren't really on-point here.

As a think tank, Mackinac has a board of scholars , which includes friends of mine (and, I suspect, of many of my co-bloggers) among the libertarian professoriate.  I hope that those who are in a position to do so will engage in pushback and internal criticism here.  A think tank in part relies on a network of scholars for its social-scientific respectability and validity.  An attack on the university professoriate should jeopardize those relationships, and I hope that Mackinac hears that message from those close to it.