LINK to ACLU PDF, Watchlisting: https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/watchlist_briefing_paper_v3.pdf
WHEN READING THE SHORT EXCERPT BELOW FROM ACLU’S WATCHLISTING PAPER, TAKE NOTE THAT A DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBER OF MILITARY VETS ARE MENTIONED AS BEING WATCHLISTED? COINCIDENCE? SO I GUESS THIS IS HOW VETS ARE “THANKED” FOR SERVICE?
U.S. Government Watchlisting:
U.S. Government Watchlisting: Unfair Process and Devastating Consequences
Introduction
The U.S. government today maintains a massive watchlisting system that risks stigmatizing hundreds of thousands of people, including American citizens, as “known or suspected terrorists” based on secret standards and secret evidence, without a meaningful process to challenge error and clear their names.
The watchlists in this system are shared widely within the federal government, with state and local law enforcement agencies, and even with foreign governments, heightening the negative consequences for listed individuals. Being placed on a U.S. government watchlist can mean an inability to travel by air or sea; invasive screening at airports; denial of a U.S. visa or permission to enter to the United States; and detention and questioning by U.S. or foreign authorities—to say nothing of shame, fear, uncertainty, and denigration as a terrorism suspect. Watchlisting can prevent disabled military veterans from obtaining needed benefits, separate family members for months or years, ruin employment prospects, and isolate an individual from friends and associates.
Given the gravity of these consequences, it is vital that if the government blacklists people, the standards it uses are appropriately narrow, the information it relies on is accurate and credible, and the manner in which watchlists are used is consistent with the presumption of innocence and the right to a hearing before punishment—legal principles older than our nation itself.
Yet the government fails these basic tests of fairness.
It has placed individuals on watchlists, and left them there for years, as a result of blatant errors, and outright racism, malice & retaliation because they don’t like your political ideology–or even simply because they are acting as useful shills and handmaidens for the “usual suspects” like the CIA/NSA who have historically carried out covert & illegal human experiments. (My italicized words).
It has expanded its master terrorist watchlist to include as many as a million names, based on information that is often stale, poorly reviewed, or of questionable reliability. It has adopted a standard for inclusion on the master watchlist that gives agencies and analysts near-unfettered discretion. And it has refused to disclose the standards by which it places individuals on other watchlists, such as the No Fly List.
Compounding this unfairness is the fact that the “redress” procedures the U.S. government provides for those who have been wrongly or mistakenly included on a watchlist are wholly inadequate. Even after people know the government has placed them on a watchlist—including after they are publicly denied boarding on a plane or subjected to additional and invasive screening at the airport or told by federal agents that they will be removed from a list if they agree to become a government informant—the government’s official policy is to refuse to confirm or deny watchlist status.
Nor is there any meaningful way to contest one’s designation as a potential terrorist and ensure that the U.S. government, and all other users of the information, removes or corrects inaccurate records. The result is that innocent people can languish on the watchlists indefinitely, without real recourse.
ME: AND PEOPLE STILL SUFFER UNDER THE DELUSION THAT THE U.S. IS A “DEMOCRACY”?
A bloated and unfair watchlist system does not make us secure, and the ACLU has long called for fundamental reform.
ME: I WOULD POSIT THE AIM IS NOT “SECURITY”, BUT PER FASCISM’S USUAL M.O., THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS POPULATION CONTROL. THE IRONY OF THIS, AT LEAST IN MY CASE, IS THAT NOT ONCE HAS THIS EXPERIMENTATION & TARGETING EVER CHANGED OR MODIFIED MY OPINIONS OR BELIEFS. IF ANYTHING, IT HAS SIMPLY CONFIRMED AND CEMENTED THEM. AND I DO LIKE BEING RIGHT. BUT BEYOND THAT, I KNOW I’M ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY AS WELL.
If the government is to use watchlists, it must institute narrow, specific criteria for placing individuals on them; apply rigorous procedures for reviewing, updating, and removing erroneous entries; and limit the use of such lists such that they do not amount to punishment without charge.
ME: WELL, WE KNOW THIS IS NOT HAPPENING & AS I’VE REPEATEDLY WRITTEN I’D BET THE FBI IS BEING SO SECRETIVE WITH THE NAMES ON THE KST & SELECTEE LISTS BECAUSE THEY LIKELY HOLD MULTIPLE NAMES WITHIN THE SAME FAMILIES WHO ARE BEING ILLEGALLY EXPERIMENTED ON BY THE AFOREMENTIONED ‘LETTER AGENCIES’. INCLUDING BABIES AND CHILDREN WHO COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE LISTED AS SUCH FOR ANY OTHER LOGICAL REASON. CAN YOU THINK OF WHY A NEWBORN, INFANT OR CHILD WOULD BE LISTED AS A POTENTIAL OR KNOWN TERRORIST UNLESS THEY ARE EXPRESSLY USING ISRAELI STANDARDS & PLAYBOOK, WHICH I WOULDN’T DOUBT.
Individuals must be provided with a meaningful, participatory process by which they can challenge their inclusion on a watchlist before a neutral decision-maker. Ultimately, Congress and the Obama administration must rein in what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has called “a vast, multi-agency, counterterrorism bureaucracy that tracks hundreds of thousands of individuals”1 —a bureaucracy that remains secret and unaccountable to the public or the individuals that it targets for blacklisting.
ME: SO SECRET NOMINATIONS WITH STANDARDS SO LOW THAT ONLY 1% ARE REJECTED, SECRET LISTINGS THEY WILL NOT CONFIRM OR SUBSTANTIATE, NO CHARGES, NO INDICTMENTS, NO REDRESS, AND NO INCENTIVE TO TAKE PEOPLE’S NAMES OFF THE LIST AND THEY ARE ARMED WITH UNLIMITED MEANS TO SHARE ALL OF THIS ‘ERRONEOUS’ AND ERROR-PRONE INFO WITH THOUSANDS OF AGENCIES WITHIN THE U.S., AS WELL AS GLOBALLY? AGAIN, THIS IS WHAT PASSES AS ‘DEMOCRACY’ THESE DAYS?
What Is the Government’s System of Watchlisting?
In 2003, President Bush directed that the government consolidate its approach to screening known or suspected terrorists,2 which eventually resulted in the creation of bloated watchlist system that contains the identities of significant numbers of people who are neither known nor appropriately suspected terrorists. The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) is the hub of this system. It maintains a master watchlist called the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), 3 and information from the TSDB flows to various other watchlists and databases, including the following:
- The No Fly List (maintained by the TSC), a subset of the TSDB that identifies individuals who are prohibited from flying to, from, or over U.S. territory.
Individual Cases: No Fly List
Marine veteran Abe Mashal’s inclusion on the No Fly List made it impossible for him to work for clients of his specialized dog training business who lived beyond driving distance, resulting in the loss of significant business income. FBI agents told Mashal that he would be removed from the No Fly List if he agreed to become an informant. - READ THE REST OF THE ACLU DOCUMENT AT THE LINK PROVIDED ABOVE.
Rosemary's Babies And Company 