Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The newshounds (another fine product from the Outfoxed syndicate) are trembling in their boots. What set them off? A 15-second report from Laurie Dhue that they headline "The Patriot Act in Action", and summarize as follows:

Dhue issued a warning to anyone planning trouble for the Republican National Convention in New York. Websites will be monitored and meetings will be attended by security officers in plainclothes.

Other than the fact that Ms Dhue didn't "issue a warning" (she merely reported a news item) this is a fair paraphrase of what was said. But the hounds are aquiver--their super doggie-sense is tingling:

This disturbing announcement had been streaming across Fox's ticker throughout the day.

Let's see. It's "disturbing" that police are monitoring websites? Why is that, exactly? If you can monitor websites, and I can monitor websites, the police should be, what, banned from monitoring websites? And police in plainclothes? Another outrage! They should make them wear their uniforms at all times. Otherwise, how's a terrorist to know?

People have been served subpoenas and others have been questioned.

Now things are really getting out of control. There are grand juries out there investigating crimes and terrorist acts, and the US citizens making up these grand juries actually are being allowed to issue subpoenas? What is this world coming to? What's more, "others" have been questioned. Alert the media! How dare police question people? If the newspups were king, that sort of outrage would be stopped immediately. Just think what would have happened if they had been allowed to do this before 9/11? Maybe Bush and Halliburton wouldn't have been allowed to knock down the World Trade Center.

As if this isn't scarey [sic] enough, Fox ran the story about Al Qaeda recruiting terrorists that look American, a few times today. So we can expect protesters to be arrested, charged with terrorism and then simply vanish.

Um, well, OK. That's certainly a logical progression nobody could quarrel with. But when that happens, won't it completely foul up the record-keeping? How will we be able to tell which people were eliminated by the evil grand juries and which were abducted by those experiment-hungry aliens?

If they pull it off in New York, we can expect a massive crackdown on anyone who disagrees with the administration.

Yes, those rampant grand juries will outlaw the Democratic Party and install Tom DeLay as President For Life. And don't forget all that actual (gasp!) questioning of "others" going on.

The Newshounds always joke about being carted off in the night for this blog, but now, it's not so funny.

Paranoid much?

Don't forget, all this is an example of "the Patriot Act in action". Because before the Patriot Act, police couldn't dress in plainclothes, they couldn't ask questions, their mommies didn't let them go on the internet, and grand juries couldn't issue subpoenas.

Paranoid. And ignorant.