I heard a little bit of paranoid concern over the Patriot Act the other day.  The guy was CONVINCED that because of it, we no longer had any freedom at all, and everything we do was able to be held against us even if we did nothing, never mind anything that was actually illegal.  Here is an article written by a law professor who helped write the Patriot Act..  I really wish I'd read this first and been a little prepared.

The basic point of the article is that there isn't a whole lot new introduced in the law.  At least not towards the way of the conspiracy guys.  Namely, the government still can't search your house without a warrant, they always COULD subpoena your library records, and it's always been a crime to interfere with a flight crew.  For these points, the law just makes a crime to ATTEMPT or conspire to interfere with a flight crew, and apply the same standards to terrorism investigations, which often involve non-citizens, who used to enjoy a different standard of protection from our laws.  I always think of the bad guy from lethal weapon 2..."Ah Ah Ah.  Diplomatic Immunity!"

 
The point of the article is that of course, like everything the government does, we still need more oversight, but fundamentally, the new things the law DOES introduce are critical to law enforcement being able to do a good job, and the things that are scaring the paranoid contingent aren't really scary at all.  Maybe it's just scary that none of them knew they could have been searched without notice or had their library records scoured BEFORE the Patriot Act.  At any rate, it looks like we don't need barcode scanners for our foreheads just yet.