"A senior Obama administration official said Mr. Abdulmutallab had come to the attention of American officials at least several weeks ago, but the initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could potentially carry out a terrorist attack.
"The investigative file was opened after Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father warned officials at the United States Embassy in Nigeria of his son’s increasingly extremist religious views, the official said.
""The information was passed into the system, but the expression of radical extremist views were very nonspecific", said the senior administration official, who has been briefed on the inquiry but spoke on condition of anonymity because it is continuing. "We were evaluating him, but the information we had was not a lot to go on.""
Do we really want to prevent anyone who expresses extremist religious views from boarding an airplane?
At least two of my friends are barred from entering the United States for life simply because they were members of a Marxist organisation in their teens, and are now labelled as terrorists. I come from a fairly left-leaning country (Denmark) where Marxism isn't all that unusual. We call it free speech.
Huh? The hypothetical was about religion not about economic systems and/or government/social structures. So you've basically changed the subject as opposed to responding to the comment.
It isn't really possible to respond in any substantial way to the mis-mash of ideas you introduce with your anecdote but I will say that free speech is not an absolute right for US citizens never mind for non-citizens.
Along with how many other people? Hundreds of thousands?