A couple of new examples of the government checking into our lives in ways they are not supposed to:

Attorney General John Ashcroft insisted Thursday that doctor-patient privacy is not threatened by a government attempt to subpoena medical records in a lawsuit over the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.  At stake are records documenting certain late-term abortions performed by doctors who have joined in a legal challenge of the disputed ban.

The subpoenas seemed to be a tactic of intimidation comparable to a subpoena issued recently in a federal grand jury probe ordering Drake University to turn over names of certain anti-war activists.

And this is without the help of the Patriot Act.