Terrorist watch list: One tip now enough to put name in database, officials say

[cory777]

Source: Washington Post

A year after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals' names to a terrorist watch list and improved the government's ability to thwart an attack in the United States.

The failure to put Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the watch list last year renewed concerns that the government's system to screen out potential terrorists was flawed. Even though Abdulmutallab's father had told U.S. officials of his son's radicalization in Yemen, government rules dictated that a single-source tip was insufficient to include a person's name on the watch list.

Since then, senior counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip, as long as it is deemed credible, can lead to a name being placed on the watch list.

The government's master watch list is one of roughly a dozen lists, or databases, used by counterterrorism officials. Officials have periodically adjusted the criteria used to maintain it.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122901584.html

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Uncensored Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[DBoon]

1. I'm in a business that requires a lot of business travel

I think I just figured out a way to screw over the guy I'm competing with over in the next cubicle

:evilgrin:

Seriously, you don't think the no-fly list will become a way to settle personal grudges and kneecap rivals?

[jwirr]

2. Exactly, History is full of people who turned someone in just to get

an advantage for themselves. We seem to have forgotten a lot that history has taught us.

[DBoon]

11. That's my definition of a police state

when you settle personal grudges by snitching to the Stasi

[sarcasmo]

23. Bingo,Police State has arrived. Add the forced blood taking when you refuse a breathalyze and

Police State pretty much sums up this country. We are number one in jailing our population.

[Incitatus]

3. I guess that depeneds if that one tip puts you on a no fly list or just makes you subject to

additional scrutiny. You are right, though. Some people will attempt to make credible tips against others for personal reasons. Even if it only results in a pat down or strip search, it's still frustrating. It happens in businesses all the time. Someone will call an owner/manager and make up stories in an attempt to get that person in trouble or fired.

[Swagman]

14. of course it will..estranged couples fighting for children

..business rivals.,.petty feuds. It's like Salem all over again.

[Kaleko]

4. Well, there's an invitation to get on the phone en masse

and report everybody and their grandma to the authorities until these terror-lovers drown in their own swamp gas.

[The abyss]

6. LOL .....

[Swagman]

15. actually that is a sensible idea. Drown them in red-tape.

report every single airport official to begin with.

[provis99]

5. so can we phone in tips on every Republican in Congress?

This policy could lead to some delicious outcomes.

[Ruperto31]

8. Ted Kennedy was on the watchlist & had trouble getting off it.

He was not allowed to fly--the first time it happened. The second time they felt him up. It took weeks to get his name off the list. This was in 2004.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/06/terror/main610466.shtml

[molly77]

12. Can we all buy Julian Assange masks when we do it?

[sarcasmo]

24. Just make sure you call from a disposable/ throw away phone.

[Ruperto31]

7. A year ago, the FBI said it had 400,000 people on its watchlist

http://current.com/news/91341720_fbi-says-400-000-people-are-on-watch-list.htm

[DavidDvorkin]

9. Reminiscent of the Reign of Terror

At least we don't have guillotines and lines of tumbrels. Yet.

[soryang]

10. Officials periodically adjusted the criteria used to maintain it....

Oh that sounds real due process like, like a country with laws and all that...

I'm sold on it now! All it takes is a little fake bomb theater, arranged by your secret covert super intelligernt agentcies. Well I'm all ready to give up my rites now. Where do I strip down and bend over? Are the electric prods ready?

[PufPuf23]

13. Back in the 80s and 90s, I would fly 50,000 to over 100,000 miles per year

and had passes for several airlines VIP/business suites. I used to take my wife on frequent flyer miles for fun.

Have not been on one commercial flight since 1999.

I have a bad attitude so add me to the list. ;o)

[MadHound]

16. Everybody should just rat out on their family, friends and acquaintances,

Swamp that list with so much BS data that it becomes useless.

[Javaman]

17. Ahhhh McCarthyism alive and well...

don't like your neighbor? make something up, then claim you were mistaken.

Don't like that guy you work with? make something up, then claim were you were mistaken.

yayyyy!!!

I love fascism!

For those of you who still hold onto the very naive belief that we don't live under fascism now, explain to me what will it take for you to believe it? I honestly want to know.

[gratuitous]

20. Well, the tip has to be deemed credible

What the criteria for that is, however, is probably anybody's guess. Or highly classified in that if Homeland Security were to reveal such sensitive details, they'd have to kill anyone who found out. In the name of safety, of cuss.

[Javaman]

21. Does it matter what the criteria is?

It's all up to some nameless schmo who deems what is and what isn't credible.

We have no recourse, no avenue to investigate.

They can tell us all they want about how so and so isn't on the list, but who is to say?

How can we believe anything they say? Especially after the last 9 years and everything coming out in wikileaks?

HLS has no credibility. They were set up to control us, period.

[woo me with science]

18. Are you now or have you ever been....

:scared:

[IDemo]

19. Wouldn't it be easier for them

to simply create a database for those who are deemed fit to fly: CEO's, RW politicos & teabaggers, etc.?

[slackmaster]

25. In all seriousness, I think there should be some kind of "white list" for air travel

People who have been pre-screened, and have to submit only to a metal detector or X-ray backscatter to check for prohibited items inadvertently left in pockets or carry-on luggage.

[Rex]

22. A Nigerian man tries to blow up a plane meanwhile Halliburton pays

of Nigeria so that Dick Cheney can stay out of jail. Where are our priorities? Oh right, not with the war criminals just the nebulous 'evil doers'. :eyes:

[harvey007]

26. ACLU

http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/watch-lists

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/us-government-no-fly-list-unconstitutional-and-ineffective

[slackmaster]

27. Two things I've always wanted to be are an "official" and a "fellow"

Fellow just sounds so respectable.

[No Elephants]

28. Terra! Terra! Terra! Whatever happened to "Live free or die?" "Give me liberty or give me death!"

What brave people USED to live here!