According to the full article, for now all this means is that the DHS can put your name on a “list” if you come under the ambit of the directive. Where the name-gathering becomes worrisome is that being on a list associated with the DHS means you’re much more likely to get flagged when passing through an airport (or, now, bus station, interstate highway, hockey game, or social security office). It’s not a far stretch to imagine that those on one list are much more likely to be placed on other “lists” as a result: “You’re on the ‘journalism’ list, so we have concerns about you and are therefore putting you on the watch list for flying” etc.
Of course, DHS lists do look an awful lot like “usual suspect” lists that could be used later on to persecute citizens who don’t hold the appropriate viewpoint. But that’s just silly tinfoil-hattery, much along the same lines as if the government were to start doing intrusive searches of people, or calling protestors “terrorists”, or claiming that veterans were potential extremists, and we all know the government would never do something like that.
From the list to indefinite detention. :(