WHEN PRESIDENT Clinton occupied the Oval Office, Republicans complained that he was using the IRS to intimidate conservative activist groups. Republicans were all about free speech and the right of citizens to dissent. Now they are the ones in power, and guess what? They want to shut down left-wing activist groups.

This week Republicans in the U.S. House plan to bring up a bill to restrict contributions to 527 groups (named after their section of the IRS code) and regulate them like political committees. You might remember 527s from the last Presidential election. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Moveon.org were the two best-known.

Washington Republicans whine that 527s escape the sort of regulation imposed by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. They say it is important for our republic that the federal government restrict how much money these organizations get and how they can spend it.

They are full of baloney.

Republican political committees outraised and outspent their Democratic counterparts in 2004 by tens of millions of dollars. But left-leaning 527s erased that Democratic deficit, trouncing conservative 527s in fundraising and spending, thanks to the deep pockets of billionaire George Soros and other wealthy liberals.

Republicans were not amused. Now they have a plan to silence their critics, and they are doing it in the name of reform. Fidel Castro could learn from such masterful Orwellian doublespeak.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has the job of leading the opposition to this power grab, and we hope she and the Democrats give the GOP leadership both barrels. This is about the party in power brazenly and thuggishly trying to suppress the free speech rights of its weaker political opponents. It must not be tolerated, no matter which party happens to be doing it.

Americans have allowed the government to muzzle them one little law at a time. They've let the government tell them how much they can spend to elect their fellow citizens to office, what they can say during election campaigns, and when they can say it. And with each new law, the appetite of the governing class only grows.

It will not be satisfied until it has outlawed as much dissent as possible. If Americans want to retain their rights to petition the government and criticize its actions, they must begin to resist these efforts to nibble away at those rights. Opposing the GOP's 527 regulations would be a good start.