"Pannick said, adding that one threat was to treat the matter as a terrorism case, resulting in a possible 60-year term."

I seem to recall some rhetoric from republicans about how there was, no way, ever, that they'd abuse the Patriot Act.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the Patriot Act.

It was my impression that in most cases powers derived by treating a crime as 'terrorism' were instated via the USA PATRIOT act.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act#Title_VIII:_Ter...]

(a) that's not at all true, about "terrorism" and the PATRIOT act.

(b) prosecutors say crazy stuff all the time to scare defendants, and defense counsel routinely invents stories about prosecutorial misconduct.

The only thing that it appears we do know about this case is that the guy committed a felony, and his excuse was, "lookin' for UFOs".