Bush
Blows His "Terrorist" Watch List
Ballooning Over One Million Names -
What's Your Name?
July 15, 2008
Bush has now blown America's
so-called "Terrorist" Watch List ballooning over one million names
-- that's a million suspected terrorists including - to list the least - freedom
fighters like the Palestinians, resistance strugglers among the
Chechnyans and thousands of Muslim activists.
Thinking what number your name is listed under? Rather, still considering
yourself a moderate Muslim or working tirelessly to model your Muslim status to
the taste of American politician? Well, if you are a Muslim, there is hardly a
way to get off the list as the list (and the criteria for adding names to it)
are secret.
Several thousands on the list are not even Muslims let alone becoming Holy
warrior or Mujahidun. They are nuns, members of Congress,
and people named "Robert Johnson" who will spend their days being
harassed, denied the fundamental right to travel, and punished for having a name
vaguely like the name used by someone who may or may not be a so-called
terrorist.
Among those on the watch list are deceased people, such as Saddam Hussein who
was hanged in 2005, decorated war veterans, and US Senator Ted Kennedy, the ACLU
said.
Nobel Peace Prize winner, former South African president Nelson Mandela, was
also on the list until last month when when an act of Congress removed his name
-- the only way, according to the ACLU, to get off the list.
Now that the "terrorist" watch list now has ballooned more than one million
names, the question to ask the Americans and Bush's clones is: Do you feel safer
now?
"America's new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for
what's wrong with this administration's approach to security: it's
unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the
innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the
lives of millions of travelers in this country," said Barry
Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. "It
must be fixed without delay."
"Putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the
list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of
innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security
resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning," said Steinhardt. "I doubt
this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist."
This so-called watch list of Bush own made "terrorists" suspected and known by
White House and its Agencies like CIA and FBI was - according the American Civil
Liberties Union said Monday - compiled by the US authorities .
The ACLU said it derived that figure from a Justice Department report on the
FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, which consolidates terrorist watch list
information.
The Center "had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 and that
the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month," according
to a report by the Justice Department Inspector General, the rights group said.
"By those numbers, the list now has over one million names on it," the ACLU
said in a statement.
"The watchlist is a perfect symbol for what's wrong with the administration's
approach to terrorism: it's unfair, out of control, incompetently administered,
a waste of resources, and is a very real impediment in the lives of billions of
travelers," the director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program, Barry
Steinhardt, told reporters in Washington.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) flatly denied the allegation
that the list contained one million names.
"Assumptions about the list are just plain wrong," the TSA said in a posting on
its website, estimating that there were less than 450,000 people on the watch
list.
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 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).
Along with the Muslims, especially the Mujahidun Holy warriors, "members of
Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ’suspicious characters,’ with names like
Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of
this list, with little hope of escape," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of
the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.
"Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or
the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon."
Fredrickson and Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s
Technology and Liberty Program, spoke today along with two
victims of the watch list: Jim Robinson, former assistant
attorney general for the Civil Division who flies frequently and
is often delayed for hours despite possessing a governmental
security clearance and Akif Rahman, an American citizen who has
been detained and interrogated extensively at the U.S.-Canada
border when traveling for business.
"Putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that
the list will do more harm than good by interfering with the
travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our
limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning," said
Steinhardt. "I doubt this thing would even be effective at
catching a real terrorist."
Controls on the watch lists called for by the ACLU included:
• due process
• 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.
The ACLU also called for the president - if not this one then
the next - to issue an executive order requiring the lists to be
reviewed and limited to only those for whom there is credible
evidence of terrorist ties or activities. The review should be
concluded within 3 months.
In February, the ACLU unveiled an online "watch list
counter," which has tracked the size of the watch list based on
a September 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice
Department, which reported that it was growing by 20,000 names
per month.
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