In America's past, we've made a lot of free speech mistakes, and we shouldn't be proud of them. John Adams -- only our second president! -- signed the Alien and Sedition Acts during his tenure in office, for example. These acts were ostensibly designed to prevent "sedition" (a lovely euphemism that governments use for "people criticizing the government" which makes that most democratic of actions sound evil and sinister) but were, in fact, intended to silence his critics. People who publicly criticized Adams -- and there were many -- ended up in jail. Thankfully, Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of these people.

During both World Wars, the U.S. government cracked down on "sedition" again. After World War II, the spectre of communism caused the formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which investigated communist people and organizations. During the Vietnam War, the FBI infiltrated and surveilled anti-war organizations.

I thought we had moved on, but again, the Bush administration continues to surprise me with the depths to which it is willing to descend to (1) gain complete control of the government, (2) gain complete control of the world, (3) make tremendous amounts of money for itself and its friends, and (4) destroy those who would dare criticize it. This story from Boing Boing falls into category four:

Professor Walter F. Murphy, a Korean war hero and McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) at Princeton, was delayed while flying because he's on a "terrorist watch list." The check-in clerk told him that he was probably added because he gave a speech that was critical of the president (who dodged his military service).

According to the American Airlines representative to whom Murphy spoke, American citizens who have broken no laws are placed on terrorist watchlists for being in peace marches. That's right; if you protest the Iraq War, which is a war that is designed to fulfill categories (2) and (3) above, sometimes via category (1), then you get category (4).

This is not security. This is not "protecting the homeland." This is an abuse of power, plain and simple. Power abuses are always couched in the language of national security; cf. the Bush administration's reasons for not permitting Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify, under oath and on the record, in front of Congress. This president sickens me.