One million names on US terror watch list, says rights group

[cal04]

Source: The Australian

A WATCH list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said today.

The ACLU said it derived the figure from a Justice Department report on the FBI's Terrorist Screening Centre, which consolidates terrorist watch list information.

The centre "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.

(snip)
"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.

Read more: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24022078-12377,00.html

[cliffordu]

1. I was an early adopter. I've had an FBI file since 1970.....

[OneBlueSky]

19. hey, me too! . . . worked for a VERY liberal Congressman, not to mention . . .

my time with Pete Seeger . . . we used to wave at the van parked across from Pete's driveway every time we visited . . . they never waved back, though . . .

[cliffordu]

22. While in Vietnam I told my XO I finally knew who the enemy was.

[cliffordu]

26. What did you do with Pete Seeger??

[OneBlueSky]

35. I worked on the CLEARWATER project early on . . .

helped raise funds to pay the construction contract, was at the launching in South Bristol, Maine, in 1969, and was the first Executive Director of what was then the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc. . . I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with Pete, including many visits up at his home in Beacon . . . during this period, I went to more Pete Seeger concerts in local high school auditoriums than I care to even try to count . . .

I still run into Pete every now and then, usually at the Clearwater festival in June or at other events in the lower Hudson Valley . . . used to get a note or postcard every so often regarding this or that, but he's 89 years old now and doesn't correspond as much as he used to . . . always one of my heros, it was Pete who got me interested in protecting the environment long before it were front page news . . .

Pete has always been way ahead of most everyone else in his thinking and his activism . . . back in the late 60s and early 70s he was all over every anti-war, civil rights, and environmental campaign there was and was pretty much reviled by the powers that be . . . as time passed, he gradually became this mythical figure in American culture, so much so that those same powers awarded him their highest recognition at the Kennedy Center Honors a few years ago . . . like the song says, "to every thing there is a season" . . .

PBS stations are running a documentary about Pete every now and again this summer . . . check your local listings and catch it if you can . . . they did a nice job of capturing the man and his message . . .

cheers . . . :hi:

[ixion]

2. if this bogus, factually inaccurate list is not disposed of, soon

everyone will be on it.

[shraby]

3. Everyone but Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld

Wolfowitz, Feith, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, and a few others.

[LiberalFighter]

17. I have a list of 7,325 GOP.

Let's delete the current file and start with my file.

[kestrel91316]

4. I strongly suspect

everybody on DU is on the list, lol.

[Hydra]

5. I'm sure most of the regular posters are

The lurkers might not be, while the other regulars are on DHS's payroll! :evilgrin:

[FREEWILL56]

6. So according to bush and co there is nearly

1% of the American population that are terrorists? Yes, we may indeed be a threat to his sovereignty.

[SpiralHawk]

7. You're either with us, or you're against us. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

[FREEWILL56]

32. Count me as against all chimps.

[Blaq Dem]

8. Black people has been on that list before there were a such thing as the FBI

We call it "racism." We're watched everywhere we go.

[Judi Lynn]

9. One million on US terrorist watch list

Source: AAP (Australian Associated Press)

One million on US terrorist watch list
July 15, 2008, 8:26 am

A watch list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union says.

The ACLU said it derived the figure from a Justice Department report on the FBI's Terrorist Screening Centre, which consolidates terrorist watchlist information.

The centre "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.

Among those on the watchlist are deceased people, such as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who was hanged in 2005, decorated war veterans, and US senator Ted Kennedy, the ACLU said.



Read more: http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/4789631/million-terrorist-watch-list

[undeterred]

10. DU registrants?

We're very dangerous. :P

[Frisbee]

12. It's really more...

of an enemies of Bush/Cheney list. And considering what they have done to the economy, environment, constitution, international relations and too many other things to name, 1,000,000 is probably a low number. Fuck them.

[BearSquirrel2]

11. They don't care ...

This administration could care less about terrorism. The purpose of the terrorism list is to harass people who disagree with them. Any sane person would realize that any list more than 100 in length is useless from the standpoint of actually trying to find someone.

The secondary effect of this is to completely jam up the security works with false positives that it's impossible to move freely and concentrate on serious threats.

The benefit to the administration is that it makes terrorism MORE LIKELY!!! And if that happens, you know what they do with it. They make lemonade.

[LeftyMom]

13. My mom gets "randomly" searched whenever she travels, so she's probably one.

Because, you know, 50 year old disabled Italian-Americans from Oakland are a known terror threat. :eyes:

[mmonk]

14. Yep, up 1/4 million since Naomi Wolf was giving talks

about her book last November. I guess many of us will be on the list indefinitely since congressional Democrats seem to be on board with secrecy, domestic spying, and expansion of the security state (security industrial complex). Lots of money to be made and lots of things to keep covered up.

[superconnected]

15. I guess I'm proud to be there with all the other peace lovers and environmentalists.

And I'm also proud that my peaceful ways are a terrorist threat to the bush administration. It's like good people are a threat to bad or smth.

I bet the Dali Lama is on it too :).

[Rosa Luxemburg]

16. Congress should demand that our security information gathering is made more efficient

there is a lot of taxpayers' money being wasted using antiquated systems and untrained personnel. The list needs refining so that real terroriats are caught.

[Indenturedebtor]

18. Heh well at least I'll make the history books for something

What a horrid waste of money and threat to Democracy this (entire Administration) is.

[VP505]

20. Absolutely absurd numbers,

when considering that most of the people on the list are "suspects", so classified by using some arbitrary criteria and FEAR.

[OneBlueSky]

21. well, let's see . . . there's 123,000 registered DUers . . .

wonder who the other 877,000 are? . . . if we could get hold of the list, that's a LOT of potential new members/donors, no? . . .

:hi:, Sgt, Bilko
(now that the Army is monitoring the internet, Agent Mike has been replaced) . . .

[LynnTheDem]

23. God bless the USSA!

[Diclotican]

24. cal04

cal04

In the USSR and in the old Eastern Europe they DO know they was been watched every hour of the day. In US they still belive that they are free.. when 1 prosent of the population are on "a list" of sorts, then you are in deep problems.. And the list, as it point out is been bigger and bigger, by 20.000 a month.. In a few year time every american would be on the watch list.. And then.. Wel ask the population who are still living in Eeastern Europa what could happend then..

America the free.. Kiss my holly ass!!!!!

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[superconnected]

25. I bet bin laden isn't even on the list.

#1 is probably obama right now, bumped up over clinton and replacing a spot Michael Moore held for 6 years.

[ohio2007]

27. So six billion around the world can stop worrying nt.

[mbperrin]

28. OK kids, let's play "Identify that paranoid fool with the power to ruin your life!"

First clue: He was famous for: "I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names...."

Second clue: aggressively questioning a person's patriotism, making poorly supported accusations, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or to discredit an opponent, subverting civil rights in the name of national security and the use of demagoguery are all often referred to as .....

Third clue: He's dead. As he should be.

You're right! It's Joe McCarthy!!!!!

Now round two: which current politician matches 2 out of 3 of the above criteria? Oh, no, we're outta time. Don't worry, though, we'll be back next week with the next exciting episode of
"Identify that paranoid fool with the power to ruin your life!"

And remember, kids, if there were a gawd, he'd match all three criteria!

[MadMaddie]

29. McCarthyism is a bitch isn't it? The Republicans will think this

is great until they are spied on.....1 million...in 7 years they have managed to compile 1 million suspects...

This Administration is directly responsible for the state of the economy, as with everything * has done the whole administration is lazy and incompetent all the manpower and the money spying on innocent Americans while the real terrorist walk right past their damn noses. Bastards.

[minnesota_liberal]

30. You didn't expect me to make the short list, did you?

Sending pointed but still civil emails to the White House and frequenting this website is only good enough to make the top 500,000. I'd have to be really reckless to make the top 25,000.

[Swagman]

31. a link to the ACLU's press release about this-

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/35968prs20080714.html

Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names (7/14/2008)


ACLU launches online watch list complaint form

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: [phone] or [e-mail]

WASHINGTON, DC - The nation's terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government's own reported numbers for the size of the list.

"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."

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[and-justice-for-all]

34. Talk about paranoia...damn.

[OneBlueSky]

36. hey, I'm not paranoid . . . it's just that they're all out to get me . . . n/t

.

[and-justice-for-all]

37. clowns, clowns, clowns!!! Every where those Clowns!!!

I know they're there! their watching me!!!