Terrorist watchlist screws up lives of innocents
The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima wrote an article about the US government's incredibly sloppy job with maintaining a list of terror suspects. If they can't even keep innocent people off the list, how can we expect them to protect anybody from real terrorists?
One man went into a Glen Burnie, Md., Toyota dealership to buy a car, only to be told that a name check revealed he was on a U.S. Treasury Department watchlist of suspected terrorists and drug dealers. He had to be "checked for tattoos," he said, to make sure he wasn't the suspect.Link (Via Farber)An 18-year-old found he could not open an account to accept credit card payments for his fledgling technology consulting business because his name was similar to that of a Libyan official on the watchlist.
A former U.S. Navy officer who served in the Persian Gulf and whose father was killed in the Korean War when he was a child, found himself locked out of his PayPal account because his name was similar to one on the watchlist.
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Didn't it occur to anyone in the Bush administration what with 6 billion people on this damned planet, there are going to be multiple people with the same or similar name, and that names don't make you bad people? Geesh! Either they are incredibly incompetent, or they are purposefully making government look bad for whatever nefarious purposes they have, because I can't figure out any other reasons for this nonsense.
"Terrorist watchlist screws up lives of innocents"
Well, duh!
I realize the article is pertaining to consumers trying to do business, but I find it interesting that "consumers" is the word of choice, instead of "citizens".
@2 Reverend T: that was my comment exactly, you beat me to it.
@3: consumers vs citizens
I agree that the word choice should be odd - but I'm guessing that they will come under far greater pressure to actually deal with these issues if they are stopping people from buying cars as opposed to just searching them a little extra at airports (*).
(*:Yes, I realize that would be a different list. This list won't cause you to be stopped at airports because this list is all about transactions, not travel.)
This might be a stupid question, but I'm not from the US and haven't followed this too closely, but why do private businesses have access to the government list of terror suspects?
I mean, ok, the list of terror suspect itself is a stupid idea, but "at worst", it would make the government itself do stupid things. But how can it be that a private firm like a CAR DEALERSHIP gets to (Or has to?) check their customers against this list? Especially when, from what I've heard, that list is not publicly available? So why can a car dealership check whether their customer is a potential terrorist, but that customer couldn't check whether he is on the list?
This point has been made many times already, but I always think it's worth repeating: let's say you're not just innocent, you're super-duper beyond-the-moon innocent, and you can and will prove it a hundred different ways. Let's say you can get affidavits from three ex-presidents and Jesus. Let's say you're a two-year-old. Imagine the most innocent conceivable person.
You can never be taken off such a list--not because it implies someone made a mistake in putting you on, but because it implies they MIGHT make a mistake in letting the next person off. If you can get a letter from your Congressman, so can Osama bin Whatsisname, the terrorist sleeper agent.
And by a similar token, the list itself can never be discarded, because it REALLY DOES include the names of actual terrorists (including some who died in the 9/11 planes, but hey). Now that we have the technology to detect if Mohammed Atta is renting a car, we're never going to give it up, even though we know we should.
Truly amazing.
1) These lists are fundamentally Unconstitutional. They're Unconstitutional in meting out punishment on suspicion without due process. It's essentially guilt by association to an "identity" then justified to harass citizens.
2) If that wasn't bad enough, such programs are actually counter productive to genuine law enforcement, by tipping off suspects without actually making an arrest. That the agency responsible for these lists is not deploying law enforcement to capture the alleged criminals. Not FBI, SWAT, the PD or anyone. That shows even the list makers don't take them seriously. If a listed individual actually was a criminal or terrorist, being denied a common transaction like a PayPal account would only tip them off and presumably help them to be more cautious in future criminal endeavors.
Just amazing. It's mind boggling we can give so much power, without oversight, to such clearly incompetent, and quite possibly rather fascistic, keystone cops. Truly mind boggling.
@6
But how can it be that a private firm like a CAR DEALERSHIP gets to (Or has to?) check their customers against this list?
The United States has a long history of banning its citizens from doing any business with entities they don't like, viz. not only the embargo on Cuba but the fact that it's illegal for Americans to come to Canada and buy a Cuban cigar from a Canadian tobacconist.
Their government delights in legislating that everyone check these lists when doing business, or else.
As far as we know this list has a 100% rate of fail, right? I mean, we've caught a couple of terrorists here and there, using old-fashioned regular police methods, but we've never caught a single one using the terror list, right? It's 100% bullshit, right?
It's becoming more and more clear, as the Iraq War destroys the American economy, and its citizens submit eagerly to more and more instrusive and stupid terror rules, which are in fact terrorism themselves, that bin Laden won the war on terror.
semiotix,
True although I think you're actually conceding too much ground by even presuming that a super-duper innocent person should have to "prove" their innocence. People are, essentially, being accused of crimes of guilt by association with an identity. Which is bad enough. Only it's worse becasue they're never officially charged, there is no due process, and guilt is presumed. Everyone charged with this scarlet letter of "identity crime" is automatically guilty and punished.
The morons in favor of these programs aren't just cutting a few corners. They're eroding basic principles of human rights and governance defined in the Constitution and centuries of law going back to the Magna Carta of 1215. They're eroding the presumption of innocence and right to fair trial.
I'd also mention that programs of informants and harassment are always associated historically with corrupt and fascistic governments. A government that respects citizens doesn't treat them like that.
What is the constitutionality of such actions? If the government effectively prohibits certain actions, when does that become an question of liberty under the fifth amendment (the taking of which requires due process)?
@Aaron:
I suspect that it's not really a terrorist list of any sort. The Office of Foreign Assets Control is responsible for policing a variety of financial dealings including known drug traffickers, foreign countries, etc.
Basically, they're the folks who have to enforce the "No, you can't wire US$10,000,000 to the Medellin Cartel in Colombia" or "No, you can't wire US$10,000,000 to your cousin in North Korea" policies. Part of how they do that is with a list of names or known aliases for people covered by those blocks.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that the list mostly includes people and companies that are outside US jurisdiction; if you're both on that list and within the US then there are probably one or more government agencies or police departments that would like to have a few words with you. The fact that companies are checking against the list for folks within the country indicates some sloppy thinking on many peoples' part.
Hans -
See my posts above. It's clearly Unconstitutional. People need to realize how truly corrosive these things are to rule of law. It's far more than in inconvenience. It directly undermines legal and ethical standards for law enforcement and citizens rights.
As bad as it is, they've been difficult to challenge in court though because "National Security" and classification has been badly abused as a free pass to escape congressional or juridical oversight, to effectively create a space outside the rule of law for some of our most questionable law enforces to operate within.
Also, a lot of this profiling, data mining, and spying stuff is happening through private companies such as "Choice Point" the nations largest data miner, ATT and other major telecoms. They, as private companies, are very difficult for Congress and the Judiciary to oversee. Additionally, they're directed by classified agencies, who themselves often escape Congressional and Judical oversight.
All this is another reason why it's important to block telecom immunity. Otherwise we'll never find out how much illegal spying, profiling, and data mining was, and is, being done on ordinary Americans.
fencepost -
That explanation doesn't make any sense. Nobody should be able to wire $10,000,000 to North Korea. You don't need a list for that. And if anyone tries to do something serious enough to merit them being listed for, they should be investigated and charged with some type of crime, or seriously surveiled.
We're talking about people being barred from buying a car. I can't imagine any scenario where that makes sense. If a person actually is a terrorist or international criminal, they need to be arrested. Stopping them from buying a car isn't going to do any good. That's just idiotic.
@15:
That's why I commented that it was probably mostly a list of folks outside US jurisdiction and that applying it to folks within the US (and requiring its use for purely domestic transactions, though I didn't mention that) was a sign of sloppy thinking/planning.
It's a bureaucratic screwup, and until a Senator is unable to buy a car because his name is similar to one on that list it's unlikely that anyone in OFAC or Congress is going to care enough to fix it.
Another way to put it:
These lists essentially create a gray area of "possible criminals" who aren't taken seriously enough to be arrested. The punishment for being a "possible criminal" is perpetual harassment and the impedance of a normal life. There is no legal recourse to being deemed a "possible criminal."
Imagine if this was a real cop.
Imagine you have a paranoid cop following you around. He freely admits he doesn't have any evidence to make an arrest or charge you with a crime. But whenever you go to buy something he snatches the credit card from your hand, intimidates sellers, and otherwise prohibits you from living a normal life.
That would clearly be totally and utterly Unconstitutional. Even criminal harassment. Yet because it's being done electronically it's somehow sanitized and accepted.
If it's unconstitutional and criminal harrassment, have there been any lawsuits declaring such? It seems like it would be a slam-dunk in front of any judge. Unless of course the gubmint pulls out the tired "State Secret! State Secret!" to hide behind...
It's clearly more than a bureaucratic SNAFU.
Basically law enforcement is creating a limbo between guilty and innocent where people can;t be charged of a crime or arrested, but they can be harassed.
This isn't an "oopsie." It's another clear example of the gradual erosion of law enforcement ethics and mission creep between the kind of illegal methods and spooks we deploy abroad, seeping into domestic surveillance and law enforcement.
It's fundamentally Unconstitutional and goes against our core legal principles and the rule of law dating back to the Magna Carta.
Historically, it's also been at the root of fascist movements from Franco's Spain to Mussolini's Italy to Nazi Germany to Stalinist Russia. They all began with the notion of a strong security state that gradually and increasingly abused power while losing respect for the individual citizen's rights. Along with that always comes nationalism and paranoia to justify their actions. They also have historically formed alliances with the private sector along the way, as the vertical authoritarianism and undemocratic nature of the private sector is always appealing to fascists.
I don't want to be alarmist. We're not going to become Nazi Germany overnight. But people should take these erosions of the Rule of Law and of Law Enforcement Ethics, very seriously. No good will come of them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
If the Department of Homeland Security had been part of the Third Reich, they'd have killed all the juice.
I think Adams said it best: "They're a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes."
@18
"Unless of course the gubmint pulls out the tired "State Secret! State Secret!" to hide behind..."
That's exactly what's happening.
Additionally there are related issued such as the domestic spying by companies like ATT, and the credit card companies barring transactions from these bogus lists, and so on. A lot of which is clearly illegal.
Companies are complying with illegal requests for domestic surveillance and harassment against long standing laws prohibiting exactly that. That's why it's so important to block retroactive immunity for these companies who have been complicit in illegal, and frankly rather fascistic, spying on and harassment of citizens, without Juridical oversight, warrants, prosecution, or any due process.
Even worse, there are indications companies have been complicit with illegal requests to curry favor with the administration for deregulation of consumer protections, merger approvals and market consolidation, and so on.
Again, that's textbook early stages of fascism as the vertical and undemocratic powers of the private sector align with undemocratic elements in government.
fencepost wrote, "I could be wrong, but I suspect that the list mostly includes people and companies that are outside US jurisdiction..."
Thanks for expanding on your thought, because this is a false assumption. My wife, an American citizen by birth, appears on the "selectee" list of the FAA list for unspecified reasons. She is THOROUGHLY searched EVERY time she flies, and is unable to obtain an e- pass for advanced boarding in her name. We verified her status with the FAA but are unable to petition for modification through any entity. The FBI will neither confirm nor deny our "assumption" that she was placed on this list as a reprisal for failing to readily cooperate with a warrantless search they attempted to perform at her then-employer's premises many years ago.
Your assumption is overly-trusting of the U.S.government's skills AND motivation. These errors are NOT sloppy planning, nor a mistake, IMHO. They are active attempts to reduce challenging behavior and increase compliance of the public-at-large with unconstitutional restrictions.
The worrying thing is, given the wide harvesting methods to source the names; this list will never shrink but is likely to expand exponentially.
Also as a foreigner, it is unpleasant to watch this hubris based on a notion of US security can be built on a database. We have some excellent examples elsewhere to show it is a flawed approach to national security. Anyone want to visit East Germany with me?
Despite having a large percentage of the country working in the pursuit of national security; it fell. As did the regimes based on this notion in Albania, Romania, etc.
When the law breaks the law to prevent law breaking?
It is an old record that just goes round and round. Think "Dizzy" by Reeves and Mortimer
If only perpetual systematic stupidity could be harnessed as a source of power. Hang on a minute, it has - government!
The only straight lines I see in this are -
Citizen to consumer to (c)limbo? to criminal.
(law+order)-law=order
" He had to be "checked for tattoos," he said, to make sure he wasn't the suspect. " Where do I go to get an official "I'm not a suspect" tatoo? Is it a serial number, a barcode perhaps on the forehead like those guys yesterday so the militia don't have to search for it; or can we choose a nice non-disfiguring rfid implant?
Reminds me of the Hand Maids Tale, where the main
character, Offred, discovers that things have changed when the bank machine doesnt work.
All female owned banking had been frozen...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid's_Tale
Having watched this develop over the last few years, I've just realized that I've been through 'Denial', 'Anger', 'Bargaining', and 'Depression.
(sigh) I guess Acceptance is next.
What can be done?
Collect the names of TSA, DHS and other "security". List all the names of associated politicians. Also list the names of their family members.
Next list all the snitch line numbers,the american Stasi email addresses etc.
Then organize a grassroots internet campaign to get the names of every one of these people (and their families) on the no-fly list by inundating the rat-lines. Turn in every last one of them.Ten times each.
Hounskull:
You say - Truly amazing...These lists are fundamentally Unconstitutional... such programs are actually counter productive to genuine law enforcement,...It's mind boggling we can give so much power.
I think you mis-underestimate the foxyness of these antics.
As an analogy, why do you think that cable TV interrupts its programing to show non-commercials? It is to habituate us to accept these breaks as normal, so that we won't complain when they start broadcasting real commercials, as they already do in some countries.
Why all the bullshit police state theater? Obviously it is not about security. It is about conditioning people to accept a police state. You have to do these things incrementally.
Crazy, yes. Crazy like a fox.
Joemmm12, please don't do that again.
Hounskull is right. This isn't a system for finding or discouraging wrongdoers. The real threat is aimed at people who haven't done anything for which they can be legally prosecuted: Don't piss us off, or we'll put you on the list, and your life will be screwed up forevermore.
Comment #14, FTW.
Fencepost (16), having a senator get snagged by one of these lists isn't going to do a bit of good. Teddy Kennedy's name got put on the no-fly list, and not only did it take a surprising amount of time and trouble for him to get his name taken off, but the no-fly list is still growing and flourishing.
It's clear that the list includes all kinds of entities that are within U.S. jurisdiction.
What's not clear to me is that the list represents some kind of bureaucratic snafu. Why are you so sure it's not supposed to work this way? As Hounskull points out, this administration has persuaded corporations to do illegal information-gathering on noncriminal citizens residing in the United States, in return for doing those corporations the even more illegal favor of relaxing federal regulations those companies find inconvenient.
Takuan et al.: when all the changes in basic practices take repressive forms, it would be foolish to assume they're intended for some other purpose.
Comment #28 was by Sproing, in response to Hounskull.
But ya, remember the BoingBoing article about GrandPappy Bush's facist plans. This is no accident, and the methods here are not newly invented. Same old, same old. How long do fascist states usually last, by the way? The U.S.S.R. was stable for a few generations, and China seems to be holding up pretty well.
I don't foresee any revolution in the U.S. It will decay into another China.
@ 6, 13, 15, 16, 17 and 22: The article appears to refer to the Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals ("SDNs"). The article describes this as a "watchlist of suspected terrorists and drug dealers." That description is somewhat misleading.
The SDN List contains the names of all people and entities that are subject to US economic sanctions (except for certain members of the Palestine Legislative Council, who are listed on a separate "NS-PLC List"). People are on the SDN List in connection with terrorism and drug trafficking sanctions, yes, but also in connection with the other US sanctions, including WMD sanctions, blood diamond sanctions and all the country-specific sanctions (e.g., Cuba, Iran, Burma). According to the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, few US citizens are on the List.
I am not defending the legal regime here, but let me explain how people get onto the SDN List. They are not simply thrown on to the List in secret by anyone who "suspects" them of being bad guys. The President or the Treasury Department must designate each person as meeting the conditions of the sanctions program under which that person is to be sanctioned. The particulars of the sanctions are published in the Executive Orders initiating the sanctions and in Title 31 of the US Code of Federal Regulations. The name of the person to be sanctioned, along with AKAs, is then published in the Federal Register, noting that the person has been added to the SDN List. The up-to-date SDN List itself is available online in a variety of formats on OFAC's website. OFAC occasionally removes people and entities from the List.
While SDNs have not necessarily been judicially determined to be guilty of any crime, they have been administratively determined (i.e., by the Executive Branch) to have met the conditions of the sanctions. US economic sanctions generally block SDNs' property that is either in the US or outside the US and in the possession or control of a US person. They also generally prohibit US persons from dealing in an SDN's property or property interests, whether the property is inside or outside the US. The sanctions generally prohibit US persons from doing business with SDNs, because buying something from or selling something to an SDN, or performing a service for an SDN, is considered to be "dealing" in property in which the SDN has an interest.
Most US sanctions programs are authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act ("IEEPA") of 1977 (the Cuba and North Korea sanctions are authorized by the Trading With the Enemy Act). IEEPA allows the President to declare a national emergency based on "any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States," and then impose sanctions on any foreign country or person involved in that threat.