Terrorist watch list hits 1 million

[Demeter]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-03-10-watchlist_N.htm


WASHINGTON — The government's terrorist watch list has hit 1 million entries, up 32% since 2007.
Federal data show the rise comes despite the removal of 33,000 entries last year by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center in an effort to purge the list of outdated information and remove people cleared in investigations.

It's unclear how many individuals those 33,000 records represent — the center often uses multiple entries, or "identities," for a person to reflect variances in name spellings or other identifying information. The remaining million entries represent about 400,000 individuals, according to the center.

The new figures were provided by the screening center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to requests from USA TODAY....People put on the watch list by intelligence and law enforcement agencies can be blocked from flying, stopped at borders or subjected to other scrutiny. About 95% of the people on the list are foreigners, the FBI says, but it's a source of frequent complaints from U.S. travelers.

In the past two years, 51,000 people have filed "redress" requests claiming they were wrongly included on the watch list, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In the vast majority of cases reviewed so far, it has turned out that the petitioners were not actually on the list, with most having been misidentified at airports because their names resembled others on it.

There have been 830 redress requests since 2005 where the person was, in fact, confirmed to be on the watch list, and further review by the screening center led to the removal of 150, or 18% of them.

Without specific rules for who goes on the list, it's too bloated to be effective, says Tim Sparapani, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

[lapfog_1]

1. Doing the math here...

400,000 individuals, of which 95% are foreign.

That means 5% are not foreign, or 20,000 people who are US citizens and considered "terrorists",

20,000. That's after purging the list and clearing people. Peachy.

[ProgrezivIndie]

4. " That means 5% are not foreign, or 20,000 people who are US citizens and considered 'terrorists' "

Who could those be, I wonder... Glenn Beck's lemmings, BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD, RICE, GONZALES. ETC.? :yoiks:

[lapfog_1]

5. Pretty sure a number of people here are on it.

A list of 20,000 "enemies" of the state.

We know that a number of peace activists were put on it, including some of the quakers after they held
meetings to protest the Iraq war.

[Bryn]

2. Bet Chuck Norris is on the list

[sallylou666]

3. Terrists everywhere!

There's a terrist behind every tree! :tinfoilhat: