Would you like to get on the 'No-Fly' list? Easy. Here's how.

Professor Walter F. Murphy, distinguished scholar of public law in political science, emeritus of Princeton as well as a combat veteran from Korea and a retired Marine Colonel has learned how to get on the No-fly list. According to his letter published in the blog Balkinization, all you have to do is

• Participate in a Peace March, or
• Give a speech critical of George W. Bush.

Do you feel that the Bush administration is making us safer from terrorists this way, or is Rove making Republicans safer from the American public?

It makes me wonder if, by writing this and publishing it, I may find myself on the No-Fly List also. I don't have Professor Murphy's credentials, but I am also a retired U.S. Army officer. It's not just restricting Professor Murphy's speech or right to assemble that the Department of Homeland Security wants to accomplish. At least as important is to make potential critics have second thoughts before sharing their criticism of this administration.

Americans don't have to lose the war in Iraq to lose (whatever that means) the war on terrorism, as Bush and Cheney so often assert will occur if we leave Iraq. We Americans have lost the war against the terrorists when the First Amendment has been gutted. When the First Amendment to the Constitution is gutted then the two-century experiment with democracy started on the North American continent has ended.

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U.S. Constitution - Amendment I (Ratified 1791)

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

[h/t to Mark Kleiman via Kevin Drum.]