"Terrorist" Watch List Hits One Million Names

The "terrorist" watch list now has more than one million names. Do you feel safer now?

Since February we've been tracking the size of our government's list of ostensible terrorist suspects, which according to the government's own report (pdf) has been rising at a rate of 20,000 per month.

Today I appeared in a press conference at the National Press Club here in Washington to mark this latest threshold in the history of our government's so-called "War on Terror." With me were Caroline Fredrickson, head of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, and two watch list victims: Jim Robinson, a former assistant attorney general for the Civil Division at the Justice Department, who flies frequently and is often delayed for hours despite possessing a governmental security clearance; and Akif Rahman, an American citizen who has been repeatedly detained, shackled, separated from his family, and interrogated at the U.S.-Canada border when traveling for his business.

The first thing we have to do is reduce the size of this list. There cannot possibly be one million terrorists poised to attack us. If there were our cities would be ablaze. The president - if not this president, then the next one -- needs to order the Terrorist Screening Center (the entity that maintains the list) to take everyone off this list except those for whom there is credible evidence of terrorist activities or ties. And they should be ordered to do it quickly -- within three months.

There's just no excuse for a terrorist watch list with one million names on it. And the million names dramatically understates the number of Americans actually affected by this hopelessly bloated folly. With common names like Robert Johnson on the list, exponentially more Americans are caught up in a Kafkaesque web of suspicion.

Think about it -- when the government announced it was setting up this list, did anyone picture such a thing? Might as well just put the whole population on the list and save on administrative expenses.

The second primary thing that needs to be done is for checks and balances to be imposed on this watch list system. If the government is going to use watch lists, there needs to be in place the same kinds of due process protections that American citizens expect any other time the government interferes with the rights and privileges that other members of society enjoy (such as the right to travel by air).

Congress needs to put into law -- you can't trust bureaucracies to stick with "guidelines" or other weaker protections -- basic protections such as:

• a right to access and challenge data upon which listing is based;
• tight criteria for adding names to the lists;


• rigorous procedures for updating and cleansing names from the lists;


• and most of all, the right to a meaningful, participatory process by which we can challenge our inclusion on a watch list in an adversarial proceeding before a neutral arbiter.

Today we also announced the creation of an online form where victims of the watch list can report their experiences to us. We will collect those stories and use them in a variety of ways to advance our advocacy. We only share or use each story according to the permission that the submitter gives us, and stories can be submitted anonymously.

In some ways, this million-person watch list is the perfect symbol for an administration whose strategy in fighting terrorism has always revolved around making everyone a suspect -- from data mining to ID cards to see-through body scanners. It is an approach based around trying to pick a one-in-a-billion terrorist out of the population, rather than doing the only thing that has ever really worked to stop attacks: following up competently on known terrorists and known leads and working outward from there to go directly to the terrorists.

Comments

[Infokronea]

A list of names culled from published US Government files was rejected in favor of outsourced product back in 2002. As a direct result, we now have the terrorist list from Hades. (Perhaps they were being paid by the name? Sorry. Bad joke.) So why reject the real deal in favor of garbage? One might want to consider the following: Corporations who don't want information to be found often bury said information in an overabundance of information. If you require a good fictional example, check out "Syriana".

[Allocator2008]

I don't know what the big deal is. If one has not done anything wrong, one has nothing to worry about. This is America, we have due-process, the right to remain silent, the right to a phone call, etc. Who cares about some stupid list? Just don't do anything bad, and you'll be fine.

[bushbotssuc]

If you want to know if you are on the list, book a flight to anywhere. When you are at the ticket/check in counter, watch the agent's face as she/he types your info into the computer.

When she/he hesitates, then looks at you and quickly looks away before stamping your ticket with the code for the special search, you know you are on the list.

[Yvan]

Look at it this way -- the Republicans have figured out that at least some of those 1 million people are fun to grope in the name of national security.

To understand why they do these things you have to understand animal psychology -- there is no doubting who is in charge when one animal can touch another animal anywhere he wants and get no complaints out of his victim.

I personally know that I am on the list because they really groped me good prior to letting me board a plane for Amerika in Charles de Gaule Airport, Paris, France last year.

So why am I on the list ? I told the Inspector General of the Justice Department to get rid of Alberto Gonzales after Gonzales refused to get rid of a US Attorney who wouldn't prosecute the President and chief council of a local company that were friends with Bush that had committed an act of obstruction of justice against me by calling police on me for doing nothing but legally talk to one of their employees while that company was the subject of an official Federal Investigation which I had opened against them.

After I later went back to the Inspector General and complained about my communications with my Democratic Senator getting messed with -- then first the US Attorney mysteriously announced he was resigning because "the job didn't pay enough", and it wasn't that much longer until Gonzales left too.

[OgreDaddy]

John Lennon is STILL on the list.

[Desdemondo]

Is Queen Elizabeth11 and past Prime Minister Tony Blair yet on the list? Maybe they should be addeed since the quest is to get as many people on it as possible.

Paranoia has truly set in...........Oh what a web we weave when......­..........

[JoeBlough]

This makes the TSA look like a 3 stooges convention.

[aliVonal]

Shit, I hope I'm not on it. How do we check, and if I am, then what?

[OgreDaddy]

That's " Classified " ;-)

[CamJam]

I've read (and not sure how this is possible though) but one way some are on the list would be if you were in some anti war rally. One reporter giving a negative report on "TSA" was recently interviewed on Anderson Cooper was how he apparently was put on the "list". His report came out about a month ago, and that is when his trouble started when trying to board planes etc.

I wonder if I'm on the list because I often comment in a negative way ( in emails, over the phone, on blogs, videos like on Youtube or forums etc) about Bush & Co. But if that were the case and is all that it took to be on the "list" I think there'd be a heck of a lot more names on the "list"

[Chavez08]

How do you know if you are on the list?

[valkyrie607]

When they drag you away from the Customs line in shackles and ship you to Syria. That's how you'll know.

[paulbikes]

I hope im on it. I love wasting peoples time!

[MikeDu]

Judging by the reaction the last time i handed over my ticket at the gate I'm on the terrorist watch list. I've never so much as been in a fistfight but I'm on the terrorist watch list. I'm reminded of news report about a vegetarian protestor in front of a meat packing plant who got taken away without charge when she wrote down the license plate number of a homeland Security car that was dogging her movements. Security my arse. From day one I knew Homeland Security would mostly be used as the Gestapo arm of the hard right.

[bushbotssuc]

Yup.

We were arrested, jailed and ticketed back in 2004 at a Cheney appearance. Our offense? We were holding a sign that read 'Shame - War Profiteer'.

Since then, I am pulled aside for the 'Intensive Search' whenever I fly. One time, after the search, I smiled at the TSA employees and commented, "You did a good job". They looked at me kind of bewildered.

The next time I flew, I was asked if I worked for the airlines. LoL.

[Topo]

I wonder who make the List. It should include, Bush, Cheney, Wolvowitz,­Bolton,Bla­ir etc.

[shelobo]

Why people are in such an uproar over the 'spying' by our Goverment is a bit odd,as people may not remember the 'Carnivore' also known as 'Omnivore ' then the name was changed to 'DCS1000 'a packet sniffer' program which was implemented during Clintons term ,and was used access peoples E-Mails . Some servers refused to allow the use of the program with out court orders . Some smart software programmers managed to come up with programs that could detect the spy program's and remove them from peoples personal p/c's.The goverment denied it even exsisted ,but it did .So spying by our OWN Goverment isn't new ,it's always been happening.The Federal Goverment has ran honey pot sites for years ,almost since the beginning of the publics use of the I/N.Google kept a database of searchs made by it's users by logging IP's ect.,.The problem with online spying is the filtering criteria that they use ,not everyone that searchs for information on Terrorist groups are potential terrorist ,but these newer spy programs give the goverment MORE rights than they had back in the late 90's and early 2000. Everytime we use the I/N we are usually being 'watched' by someone somewhere.

[elkabong]

In his profound wisdom, Bush understands that the terrorists "hate us for our freedoms." He knows that if he removes our freedoms, the terrorists won't hate us anymore.

[paulbikes]

Its so clear to me now!!!!!

[jeremydbrooks]

Oh, man...posts like that make me wish HP had a Slashdot-type moderation system.

Here's a symbolic up-mod for you:

+1 Insightful
+1 Funny

[WIpatriot]

Start the list with every human, then take them off one by one as they swear allegiance to the administration....

[wbramh]

or as they donate to the McCain Campaign and the Bush Library.