Longtime Gun Control Politicians Pushing Gun Owner Blacklist Bills in Congress

How to improve terrorist watch lists
Posted: May 3, 2010

The terrorist watch lists have been plagued by errors throughout their post-9/11 evolution. Mistakes in the lists have led to the embarrassing detainment of such prominent figures as the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and implicated countless innocent travelers like Kiernan O’Dwyer, a veteran American Airlines pilot stopped more than 80 times by U.S. customs agents. But the problems go beyond simple inconvenience.

Late last year, the Washington Post reported shocking new FBI data indicating that the ever expanding watch list database has swelled to over one million entries, and continues to grow by one thousand individuals each day. These estimates come on the heels of a series of internal government audits in which the Government Accountability Office and Justice Department have found severe flaws in the FBI’s terror watch list nomination practices.

The latest DOJ Inspector General’s report concluded that approximately 35% of those sampled were left on the list based on outdated information or material unrelated to terrorism. emphasis added

Girl, 6, lands on terror watch list
April 20, 2010 12:41PM

A FAMILY is baffled to discover their six-year-old daughter has landed on a "no-fly" list alongside suspected terrorists.

Peter Mosher said he was “flabbergasted” to discover daughter Allison was on the terror watch list.

“It’s not just an inconvenience. It makes us less safe because they’re spending time investigating a six-year-old, instead of actually going after real terrorists,” Mr Mosher told the Boston Herald.

The list is operated by the US Terrorist Screening Centre. Copies are passed to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which hands them out to airlines.

Mr Mosher, from Worcester, US, discovered the error while attempting to print out boarding passes for his family’s trip to Phoenix, finding he was unable to obtain one for Allison.

He was informed by United Airlines that she had been “flagged by TSA security”, probably because she didn’t have a frequent-flyer number.

Despite offering to get her one Mr Mosher was told her name would remain on the list as it is managed by the TSA, and that Allison would most likely need to undergo additional security screening.

“I am very sorry she is on the list. But when that happens, we are required to conduct a secondary set of security steps," United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.

A TSA spokeswoman said that because there are no children on the No Fly List, airlines can let kids younger than 12 bypass the tighter security.

Earlier this year eight-year-old Michael Hicks from New Jersey found himself on the terror watch list as he shares his name with a suspicious person.

Hicks is stopped and searched at nearly every airport, causing delays and headaches for his family.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/girl-6-on-terror-watch-list/story-e6frg8ro-1225855929483

Senator? Terrorist? A Watch List Stops Kennedy at Airport
Published: August 20, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19— The meeting had all the hallmarks of an ordinary Congressional hearing. There was Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, discussing the problems faced by ordinary citizens mistakenly placed on terrorist watch lists. Then, to the astonishment of the crowd attending a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Mr. Kennedy offered himself up as Exhibit A.

Between March 1 and April 6, airline agents tried to block Mr. Kennedy from boarding airplanes on five occasions because his name resembled an alias used by a suspected terrorist who had been barred from flying on airlines in the United States, his aides and government officials said.

Instead of acknowledging the craggy-faced, silver-haired septuagenarian as the Congressional leader whose face has flashed across the nation's television sets for decades, the airline agents acted as if they had stumbled across a fanatic who might blow up an American airplane. Mr. Kennedy said they refused to give him his ticket.

''He said, 'We can't give it to you,''' Mr. Kennedy said, describing an encounter with an airline agent to the rapt audience. '''You can't buy a ticket to go on the airline to Boston.' I said, 'Well, why not?' He said, 'We can't tell you.'''

''Tried to get on a plane back to Washington,'' Mr. Kennedy continued. '''You can't get on the plane.' I went up to the desk and said, 'I've been getting on this plane, you know, for 42 years. Why can't I get on the plane?'''
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/us/senator-terrorist-a-watch-list-stops-kennedy-at-airport.html?pagewanted=1

May 3rd, 2010
We quickly learned that the would-be bomber who sought to bring down Flight 253 just before landing in Detroit on Christmas Day was in a terrorist database, but still allowed to board the plane. As a result, President Barack Obama has called for a much needed review of our terrorist watch list system, and members of Congress are floating ideas about how to keep alleged terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off our planes and out of the country.

But we must be careful to address the actual problems with watch lists and avoid solutions that would only make it harder to find the terrorist needle in the ever-expanding hay stack of watch list entries. We must avoid the pattern in which time and time again, Congress has overreacted to external forces by embracing solutions that have proven unhelpful, if not counterproductive.

Rather than hastily expand the contents and use of these watch lists, Congress should enact reforms that improve the accuracy of the lists while limiting their potential for misuse.

The terrorist watch lists have been plagued by errors throughout their post-9/11 evolution. Mistakes in the lists have led to the embarrassing detainment of such prominent figures as the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and implicated countless innocent travelers like Kiernan O’Dwyer, a veteran American Airlines pilot stopped more than 80 times by U.S. customs agents. But the problems go beyond simple inconvenience.

***snip***

To ensure that watch lists actually protect against national security threats and to avoid penalizing innocent victims like Tom Kubbany in the future, Congress should take some simple steps to improve our government’s use of watch lists. Many of these vital reforms, outlined in the Constitution Project’s report “Promoting Accuracy and Fairness in the Use of Government Watch Lists,” are long overdue.

First, we must improve the accuracy of the lists on the front end. Most important, our intelligence agents need clear written standards that detail the specific evidentiary requirements for placing a person on a list.

Second, we must have a meaningful process to fix mistakes on the back end. There must be real redress opportunities for individuals erroneously placed on a watch list. Improved and standardized remedial procedures will promote enhanced government accountability and restore confidence in watch lists.

Finally, we must not allow use of watch lists to invade every sector of our daily lives. Grave threats to our country will not be averted by using watch lists as a blacklist to deny employment, licenses or other contracts to individuals. In these facets of everyday life, a more than adequate opportunity exists to conduct thorough background checks, and reliance on flawed watch lists poses an undue risk to individual civil liberties.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/how-improve-terrorist-watchlists