It has been used against communists, peace activists, anti-apartheid activists, greens and homosexuals in previous decades. Now it's surveillance critics who don't get in.
Sure there is. An (apparently) peaceful person from a friendly country was banned simply because she led an Internet signature campaign against a clandestine and borderline-rogue surveillance agency. How many other HNers would have signed a similar petition?
> Prior criminal convictions, affiliation with unsuitable political parties or organizations or poor character are valid justifications for denying entry according to US law
I don't see any of those being applicable in this case, at least as per the article.
When intelligent, well-informed and progressive citizens reach the point that they don't see anything wrong in a government/regime trying to muzzle critics, simply because they can and they have done so in the past, we implicitly grant approval to the continuation of such tactics.
The first step towards solving a problem is acknowledging you have one.
>borderline-rogue surveillance agency
That's not the opinion of the government. It's the job of the people to change the policy of the government. NSA surveillance is government run activity and foreigners speaking against it can be denied visa.
As forefinger I find the naivety of US citizens towards their government disturbing. NSA is not borderline-rogue as long as the White House and the Congress are on the same boat.
They are in flagrant, publicized violation of the Fourth Amendment (rogue) with only a subtle, borderling rationalization keeping them from being wiped out by congress "we won't used the mined data/results-of-unreasonable-search until we need it". The amendments being, as you may recall, agreements leveraged by the states to prevent an out-of-control federal government.
Remember, the colonies didn't need the feds as much as the feds needed the states. it has a hard sell, and without protections like the Fourth Amendment, it ain't worth it for states to be part of the nation.
For the record, Ilija Trojanov is a "he"