Two More Problems With the No-Fly List

Problem one: it's almost completely useless for any other purpose, according to Homeland Security. There are only like fifty guys on it who would be affected.

That's not a huge problem, though, because if the President gets the authority he wants, he'll just add everyone's name to it. Hope you didn't like flying very much.

Problem two: If you're a gentle, Santa-like veterinarian from Tennessee whose name is on there wrongfully, the process for clearing your name is both murky and ineffective.

Hackett has never been arrested and never traveled to the Middle East or other centers of terrorist activity, but he found out more than a decade ago he's on the federal watch list because he shares the same name as notorious Irish Republican Army terrorist Patrick Joseph Hackett, who was jailed in the 1970s for planting bombs in Britain.

The difference should be easy to spot. The terrorist is missing an arm and a leg — blown off when a bomb exploded prematurely — while the Knoxville veterinarian has all his limbs intact.

"I don't know how I got on the list, and I don't know how to get off the list," Hackett said.

Since learning he was on the list, Hackett has been denied boarding on planes and even spent time in a foreign jail.

That's not a problem either, though, since protecting your rights and liberty was the old purpose of the American government. The new purpose is progress!