Explaining the Opposition to the PATRIOT Act in Terms my Fellow Wingnuts Can Understand

Just imagine what a leftist administration could do with the powers involved. For that matter, imagine what leftists infilatrators in a supposedly-conservative administration could do.

There's a possibility they have started doing it:

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

If they're trying to keep somebody from writing a research paper comparing Communism to other forms of totalitarianism, they might be Communists (or ex-Communists) themselves.

Addendum: There is some dispute over whether this actually happened.

Addendum 2: It was definitely a hoax. This makes things harder for an honest, hard-working paranoid loon … unless this was a deliberate ploy to discredit opposition to surveillance.