"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

[karela]

A list like that is of no value whatsoever. Teddy Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, soldiers home on leave from Iraq are added because there are traces of gunpowder on their shoes? They might as well put everyone in the world on the list. They've included the ridiculous to the point that what they have for a list is too broad to be of use. Also, if they can't attach photo ID to a name, what good is it? How would they prove with Robert Johnson or David Nelson they meant? Also, adding names just because a guy wrote a book not flattering to Bush, is so purely Bush. Obama, the sooner the better!!!

[exflatlander]

I know Robert Johnson. And probably so do about 50 million Americans probably. I wonder if George Bush is on the listy. Gotta be a million or so of them out there.

Our only hope is a non-Republican president and Congress. The Democrats have been a disappointment, but 1) they're the only viable alternative and 2) there are still many who believe in the principles of American democracy and strive to maintain them. What Dems need to do now is rid themselves of their blue dog members. This country needs a good dose of liberalism!

[nastyvirus]

There are Americans on the list, some prominent, that are on there because they are not Republican. This list will probably grow to 230 million before the end of the disasterous Bush residency.

[BhunduBoy]

I'm a Berliner

[lisakaz2]

I am a jelly doughnut.

[Bedingo]

That is only about 1 in 300 American! At this rate it will take a century before the others are added. DHS needs new computers.

[ZHarris]

Since when have there been 300 million different names?

[ZHarris]

The answer is simple. If your family name is "Johnson" don't name any of your children "Robert".

Problem solved.

[clevelandchick]

Maybe you were trying to be funny and my condolences that your attempt failed so miserably but besides Robert Johnson there was David Nelson, John Williams, James Moore, Catherine Stevens etc. With one million people on the list, you can pretty much forget a vast number common names you can't name your children.

This list is completely asinine and evil because it's being used as a political tool instead of one meant to keep people safe. The Bush Administration would rather punish thousands of people to intimidate one political enemy with the same name than actually prevent a terrorist attack.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

Or if your family name is Kennedy, don't name any of them Edward.

[Seraphim230]

I'm sure it doesn't escape anyone here that we are well on our way to a fascist America lol. Just think, we get to follow in the footsteps of Hitler's Germany where judges were appointed based on their sympathy to the Nazi cause, and whatever served the good of the party was deemed licit, rights bedamned. I never understood, perhaps because I'm young, how an administration gets away with appointing sympathetic supreme court judges, instead of neutral arbiters of the law? I'll be alive in 50 years, and I can't imagine what America will look like...democracy seems like a flickering anomaly of history within humanity's general predisposition for corruption and power. I love Obama, and I hope he makes a difference, but how long really will it matter. Cynical, yes, maybe its one of those days...but I'm not sure cynicism is unrealistic.

[wndrwrthg]

Well, we know the first million or so who will be rounded up when martial law is declared. Fear of your own goverment, it's just not unreasoning parnoia anymore.

[HumeSkeptic]

Good afternoon, fellow terrorists.

.

[Mildmannered]

One million people ready to attack us -- yikes! I am going out to buy some more duct tape!

[CountryBeforeParty]

FYI, the government has identified that 600k of the names on the list are aliases, fake passports etc.

But that does excuse the fact they created one million entries for the list

[watcher269]

Everyone on this list and the CBSNews list are most definitely on the terrorist watch list - just for you opposing viewpoints!

After all - Liberal thoughts are subversive activities to Republicans that are in power right now.

Didn't the Nazi's start this way too?

[loax]

That is because the Bush White house is a terroist organization. McCain will continue his policies and turn us all into ferful, shattered people. They make me sick. Oh, now, do I get to be on their list?

[BADEN]

I'm on it, and proud of it.

They hate to see me in line.

[Iluvbush3]

Big deal, if you can't find and haul turdblossom to jail for comtempt, what the hell good is this list.

[magen]

My terrorist watch list has the names of all of the Bush administration and their enablers on it.