US terror watchlist 80,000 names long

US terror watchlist 80,000 names long
Thu Dec 8,10:59 AM ET

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.
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The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.

Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name.

The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks.

Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm's Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the "selectee" list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051208/pl_afp/usswedenattackstravel

The people have a right to know...

he commented last night that he was afraid he is on the list. (studied Islam and has a common name) I sure would like to get a copy of that list.

That's about how many posters are on DU!

Good catch, Grannie!

of the watch list, I'll bet.

Or so they say it was an error.

Here's the story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/06/terror/main610466.shtml

Mentioning guns, explosives, kidnappings, nuclear bomb, Muslim... You get the idea and all with the expressed aim that I get onto lists like this. How can I check if I'm one it?

Just mention * and the word "sucks" in the same e-mail and you're there.

:yoiks:

Does that mean I can't find out if I'm on the Blacklist until I'm boarding a plane? What if I tell them that I'd rather not take the flight than be searched? Will I be arrested for failure to comply?

Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
Fears of Post-9/11 Terrorism Spur Proposals for New Powers

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 27, 2005; Page A06

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600857.html

I know a few green party activists who got pulled off to the side.

The Feds probably put every one of those names on their list without question.

Fascism sounds better in German.

they were the original fascist gangsters remember

The Americans are catching up.

Code Name of the Week: Cornerstone

<snip> 

Well, CIFA already has these authorities, has its own agents, and collects information on common American citizens under the guise of "sabotage" and "force protection" threats to the military. Since 9/11, functions that were previously intended to protect U.S. forces overseas from terrorism and protecti U.S. secrets from spies have been combined in one super-intelligence function that constitutes the greatest threat to U.S. civil liberties since the domestic spying days of the 1970's.


On May 2, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz signed a memorandum (large pdf) directing the military to collect and report "non-validated threat information" relating to U.S. military forces, installations or missions. His memorandum followed from the establishment of the Domestic Threat Working Group after 9/11, the intent of which was to create a mechanism to share low-level domestic "threat information" between the military and intelligence agencies.

<snip>

It is the military's equivalent of the FBI and intelligence community's post 9/11 shift, and Wolfowitz directed the sharing of reports on ambiguous activity.  This new reporting mechanism -- called TALON for Threat and Local Observation Notice -- applies to seven reporting categories:
• Non-specific threats
• Surveillance
• Elicitation
• Test of security
• Unusual repetitive activity
• Bomb threats
• Other suspicious activity

According to a classified Standing Joint Force Headquarters-North document on "intelligence sharing" dated July 20, 2005, and obtained exclusively by this washingtonpost.com blogger, collection of intelligence on U.S. persons is allowed by military intelligence units if there is a reason to believe the U.S. person is: 
• "Connected to international terrorist activities;
• Connected to international narcotics;
• Connected to foreign intelligence;
• A threat to DoD installations, property, or persons; or,
• The subject of authorized counterintelligence."

In other words, some military gumshoe or over-zealous commander just has to decide that someone is "a threat to" the military. 

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/11/domestic_milita.html

Makin' an enemies list, checking it twice,
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice,
Killer George (or Darth Cheney or insert name here) is coming to town?

:)

Let's say I write a message on the internet explaining that I KILLED a BUSH the other day while spraying a chemical FERTILIZER then I filtered some veggie oil for my DIESEL Suburban but spilled about 10 gallons of it causing me to EXPLODE in anger. Would that get me on one of those lists? :D :D

I've had to fly for work several times this year, and every time the counter had to call Homeland Security. As soon as they give my birthdate, they let me through.

Damned annoying.

Phil Donahue was still on--I wrote him and asked him to do a show on passengers that are on the list since it seemed an elderly nun, a Green political activist and quakers were found on the list. That was some time ago. At the time, it was amazing that those who believe least in violence were on the list. Who is creating this list? And how come Kennedy was on the list?

Domestic Surveillance:
The History of Operation CHAOS
by Verne Lyon
from Covert Action Information Bulletin, Summer 1990

Verne Lyon is a former CIA undercover operative
who is now a director of the Des Moines Hispanic Ministry.

For over fifteen years, the CIA, with assistance from numerous government agencies, conducted a massive illegal domestic covert operation called Operation CHAOS. It was one of the largest and most pervasive domestic surveillance programs in the history of this country. Throughout the duration of CHAOS, the CIA spied on thousands of U.S. citizens. The CIA went to great lengths to conceal this operation from the public while every president from Eisenhower to Nixon exploited CHAOS for his own political ends.

One can trace the beginnings of Operation CHAOS to 1959 when Eisenhower used the CIA to "sound out" the exiles who were fleeing Cuba after the triumph of Fidel Castro's revolution. Most were wealthy educated professionals looking for a sympathetic ear in the United States. The CIA sought contacts in the exile community and began to recruit many of them for future use against Castro. This U.S.-based recruiting operation was arguably illegal, although Eisenhower forced FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to accept it as a legitimate CIA function. Congress and the public showed no interest in who was recruiting whom.

The CIA's Office of Security was monitoring other groups at this time and had recruited agents within different emigré organizations. (1) The CIA considered this a normal extension of its authorized infiltration of dissident groups abroad even though the activity was taking place within the U.S. Increased use of the CIA's contacts and agents among the Cuban exiles became commonplace until mass, open recruitment of mercenaries for what was to be the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion was no longer a secret in southern Florida. It was no secret to Fidel Castro either, as we later found out.

This activity led the CIA to establish proprietary companies, fronts, and covers for its domestic operations. So widespread did they become that President Johnson allowed the then CIA Director, John McCone, to create in 1964 a new super-secret branch called the Domestic Operations Division (DOD), the very title of which mocked the explicit intent of Congress to prohibit CIA operations inside the U.S. (2) This disdain for Congress permeated the upper echelons of the CIA. Congress could not hinder or regulate something it did not know about, and neither the President nor the Director of the CIA was about to tell them. Neither was J. Edgar Hoover, even though he was generally aware that the CIA was moving in on what was supposed to be exclusive FBI turf. (3)

more...
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html

December 09, 2005
ACLU: Protesters placed in terror files

By ANSLEE WILLETT THE GAZETTE

The names and licenseplate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado said Thursday.

The Denver-based ACLU obtained federal documents on a 2002 Colorado Springs protest and a 2003 anti-war rally under the Freedom of Information Act.

<snip>

“These documents confirm that the names and license plate numbers of several dozen peaceful protesters who committed no crime are now in a JTTF file marked ‘counterterrorism,’” he said.

<snip>

The documents cover the June 2002 protest of the North American Wholesale Lumber Association convention at The Broadmoor hotel and an anti-war protest at Palmer Park in February 2003, the ACLU said.

The FBI files contain the names and license-plate numbers of 31 people at the 2002 protest, Silverstein said.

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1312739&secid=1