FLDS thoughts

I found this excellent summary of the raid on the FLDS YFZ Ranch posted, of all places, on a BYU sports message board:

Prelude- A TX community is suspicious of their strange FLDS neighbors occupying a large and productive piece of land. Said community, predominantly evangelical in religious practice, consider the ranch and its strange inhabitants an eyesore and an abomination. Worse, community leaders feel the ranch residents are becoming too numerous and could increase in their influence politically in the county.
1. A sheriff's office and local CPS office draw up a pre-prepared ranch raid plan in case they ever need it. (sources-the Sheriff and CPS Director)
2. A sheriff's office has an informant who "escaped" from the ranch and helped the sheriff put together his raid plan. (source-the Sheriff)
3. The sheriff's office informant possessed no knowledge of any widespread abuse or sexual relations with minors, her assistance to the sheriff was largely for tactical purposes, i.e. locations of buildings, predicted response from ranch residents, etc. (Source-the Sheriff)
4. An anonymous caller claiming to be a 16 year old girl alleges that one man at the ranch, Mr. Barlow, abused her, beat her, and forced her to have sex. (source-Sheriff's affidavit in support of search warrant)
5. Despite having no evidence of widespread abuse of minors at the ranch, and without corroborrating the whereabouts of the accused Mr. Barlow during Easter weekend when he allegedly beat the anonymous girl (he had not reported in person to his probation officer in AZ that weekend), the TX judge issues a search warrant including the entire ranch property and all buildings, including houses of worship, for the anonymous complainant who needed "rescuing." (sources-affidavit for search warrant, search warrant, news intervie of Barlow's probation officer)
6. The Sheriff's office executes the warrant, utilizing AT&F agents, SWAT teams, armored police personnel carriers, and dogs. (source- Sheriff press conference)
7. While executing search warrant for evidence of a crime against one alleged 16 year-old anonymous victim, sheriff observes a small number of girls appearing to be approximately 16 who are either pregnant or holding babies, or both. Assuming one of these could be the anonymous complainant, all such girls taken into custody and questioned regarding the babies and their pregnany status.(source-Sheriff press conference)
8.FLDS mothers gather up their children in fear of the raid, and when questioned by law enforcement and CPS workers, decline to respond to demands to identify which children belonged with which parents. Without any documented evidence that any children currently at the ranch were in danger other than the alleged complainant, CPS determined that the home environment itself (i.e. polygamy), was a form of abuse, and ordered that all the children be rounded up and removed from parental custody. (Source: CPS press conference, Sheriff Press conference, FLDS mothers letter to Governor Perry)
9. Within minutes, buses owned and operated by local evangelical churches, with those churches' logos emblazoned thereon, rolled onto the ranch and 416 FLDS children were loaded onto them for transport to a "safer" environment in foster care or in government established shelters. (source-Sheriff's press conference, CPS press conference, multiple media reports)
10. Sheriff's officials continue to search for anonymous caller among children removed, with no success. Sheriff and CPS Director then claim finding anonymous caller unnecessary for case to keep children in state custody perhaps permanently. (source-CPS press statement yesterday)
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How is this constitutional? What if one of my neighbors got angry at me and placed an anonymous call pretending to be one of my children and alleging abuse? Would the state have the right to take all of my children indefinitely? Is communal religious living justification to take children away from their families? To me, this has troubling parallels to the early history of the LDS Church.

I don't like polygamy and I'm glad the LDS Church no longer practices it, but this is unconstitutional. If a crime has been committed, e.g., statutory rape, that should be prosecuted severely. I have no patience for people who commit crimes against children. But taking 400+ children away from their parents based on one anonymous phone call is neither right not legal.