14Jul US terrorist watchlist now has more than 1,000,000 names
The national Terrorist Watch List has now crossed one million names — that’s a million suspected terrorists (including 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 terrorist. There’s no way to get off the list, and the list (and the criteria for adding names to it) are secret.
“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.”
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.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
