What is the Sense of "No-Fly" Rules for Dissidents and Activists?

We are told, and have heard from past accounts, that certain anti-war activists and dissidents now have their names placed on "no-fly" lists by the U.S. government. If such persons attempt to board even a domestic flight within the United States, they are denied access to air travel, often detained, questioned, and possibly arrested. What is the purpose of this exercise?

Certainly, with the heightened security apparatus operating in the United States today, essentially any of these individuals could be interviewed, arrested, or even prosecuted without the government having to wait for these people to purchase an air ticket and go to an airport.

If these people are too dangerous to fly on commercial airlines, Are they too dangerous to be walking the city streets of the country? Are they considered to be potential suicide bombers, car bombers, truck hijackers, or practitioners of other forms of villainy? Why is air travel denied, but not the possession of driver’s licenses?

Or is this all a form of harassment against dissention and free speech? Are people seeing their lives interfered with in violation of constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Is American becoming the sort of totalitarian, authoritarian state that we claim to fear outside our own borders?

"Something is rotten in Denmark", Shakespeare once wrote, but if the United States of America existed in Shakespeare’s day, he could have said the same about us. Something evil, sinister, and anti-democratic is going on in official America these days. Freedom and Democracy are being: Speak out and lose your ability to fly! Disagree with the administration and face harassment and punishment for your trouble! Question authority and you may have your passport confiscated.

The founding fathers are rolling in their graves — this is not the America they envisioned.