40% Of People On Terror Watch List Have No Terrorist Ties 256
Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes with the chilling, but not really surprising, news that the U.S. government is aware that many names in its terrorist suspect database are not linked to terrorism in any way. From the article: Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government's widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept. Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government's Terrorist Screening Database — a watchlist of "known or suspected terrorists" that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments — more than 40 percent are described by the government as having "no recognized terrorist group affiliation." That category — 280,000 people — dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.
The one question on my mind (Score:5, Insightful)
If there are 280,000 people on the watch list that are there despite having no recognized ties to any terrorist groups.. why are they on the list at all?
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I doubt that...
More likely is a huge backlog and incompetence (remember you are dealing with a bureaucracy). So someone enters a name poof on the list (guilty with no trial, acted suspicious, etc). Then the 'trial' happens. The trial part is harder as you have to go thru the persons information ALL of it. You want to be sure as they ended up on the list somehow and you dont want to be the guy who pops one off the list and it turns out they did something. So the input rate is greater than the output rat
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Guilty until found innocent. That's worth a bit of alarm.
Re:The one question on my mind (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't have to affiliate with a terrorist group to be a terrorist. i.e. Unibomber.
But your question is still reasonable: why are they on the list? It must be some other undisclosed reason(s). Some might be valid, some might not.
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But your question is still reasonable: why are they on the list? It must be some other undisclosed reason(s). Some might be valid, some might not.
These days if it's undisclosed I assume it is not valid.
Re:The one question on my mind (Score:5, Insightful)
If there are 280,000 people on the watch list that are there despite having no recognized ties to any terrorist groups.. why are they on the list at all?
It's an election year, and nobody wants to appear soft on the wrongfully accused.
Re:The one question on my mind (Score:5, Informative)
If there are 280,000 people on the watch list that are there despite having no recognized ties to any terrorist groups.. why are they on the list at all?
Political disidints.
And no, I'm not kidding. The government has a long history of describing activism as terrorist activity. Martin Luther King for example.
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According to Greenwald, there are bigger stories to come from the Snowden leaks.
Since the beginning, my big question has been who are they actually targeting to spy on? I know they're recording everybody's calls, but whose calls are they stopping to listen to? Names.
Last month they revealed the five muslim Americans (mostly lawyers) who they were spying on. It's easy to say, "yeah, but brown people." And I think that's exactly the goal. Let people say "well, it was just muslims and they're kinda all terreri
Re:The one question on my mind (Score:4, Informative)
Probably to satisfy some quota. As seems to be the case for the no-fly list [thedenverchannel.com].
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Because contrary to its ostensible function, it's a loosely assembled list of people they have a vague notion that they might be worth paying attention to, not cutting-edge intelligence.
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Whats to stop them (Score:2)
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Not having a tie, and being on the list, means this person might possible like a build a bomb and blow up some civilians. I am more leaning to the ones with ties are more likely to not belong on the list than the ones without.
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Having a terrorist tie only means that your second cousin is friends with a person who has a roommate suspected of being a Hama[s] sympathiser.
I'm probably on there for using the #StopArmingIsrael hashtag more than never.
Whoops, there I go again.
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As nearly for every pair of persons on the planet yields: they are connected to each other by maximum 5 hops ...
Not having a tie more likely means: they got put into the DB on some suspicion, now we have the confirmation there is no tie, however: they don't get removed from the DB!
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Because: What if one of those 40% decides to become a terrorist and is allowed on a plane or isn't tracked closely thanks to being removed from the list? Can you prove that none of those 40% will ever become a terrorist in the future? No? Then they need to remain on the list just in case they one day get terrorist leanings.
Seriously, though. These agencies, sadly, seem to think in these terms. Any reduction in surveillance or removal from a terrorist watch list - even if the people being removed have n
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And there's no incentive to remove anyone from any list ever. All it costs in hard drive space, and that's cheap. If it wastes time because of extra scrutiny for people at the airport or traffic stops that just means we need more TSA agents and more police, which just means the police state apparatus needs to be bigger, so it fuels itself.
So 40% dwarfs 60%? (Score:2)
In which mathematical system is 40>60?
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In which mathematical system is 40>60?
It does. The list arbitrarily denies the right to free travel and movement among the various states for no reason whatsoever, almost 300,000 people in total. It draws into question the accuracy of the "60%"--that is, if nearly 300,000 people are arbitrarily on the list for no discernible link to terrorism, how many of the "60%" that they claim have ties to terrorism, actually do?
The incompetence of the 40% casts doubt on the claim of "60%" accuracy. I.e. "Of the 60% who do allegedly have terrorist ties, aga
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I don't think it's necessarily an error rate. What they're saying is these people may be lone actors (Unibomber, Boston bombers) who are not linked to any actual terrorist organization. Or, they're people who they think may become radicalized but have not actually phoned up Al Qaeda yet.
It's still a ridiculous number, but one can be a terrorist without being linked to a terrorist group. Yet.
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I don't think it's necessarily an error rate. What they're saying is these people may be lone actors (Unibomber, Boston bombers) who are not linked to any actual terrorist organization. Or, they're people who they think may become radicalized but have not actually phoned up Al Qaeda yet.
It's still a ridiculous number, but one can be a terrorist without being linked to a terrorist group. Yet.
You're not incorrect in your logic--one can be a terrorist without having yet been linked to a terrorist group. But it begs the question of how they were identified as terrorists and put on watch lists in the first place. Is it because they look funny? Smell funny? Have a funny hair-do? Wear traditional "muslim" clothing when they travel? Have the wrong political beliefs? Have the right political beliefs but don't express them ardently enough for big brother's taste?
The basic problem with a "Terrorism watch
Re:So 40% dwarfs 60%? (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't, but you need to go a little deeper into the article:
So this is the blurb in the summary:
And this is deeper in the article:
So, there are 50K more people who are known to NOT have terrorist ties than all of those combined, and several times more than any single category.
Basically the list is useless, because they have more known non-terror linked subjects than they have people with actual links to terrorism.
I'm betting that list is anti-war protesters, people who disagree with the government, or who have done any number of innocent things which you have a right to do.
In other words, pretty much anybody they can find.
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Why would you expect that they would? (Score:3)
The ability to join a known terrorist organization is limited to a few people based on genes, friendships, and geography.
The ability to hate the government and to build bombs is universal.
Ergo, most terrorists will most likely not have any affiliation is known terrorist organizations.
So what? (Score:3)
Only 40%? (Score:2)
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Practically every other moslem in the Middle East, I would guess, and a few more.
Some names from Islam's history, such as Mohammed or Ibrahim are very common, as first, last and middle names.
For instance, I know two people named Ibrahim Mohammed, both having being born in Europe, descendants of immigrants and not the least bit religious.
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It is the same with ... erm name used by christs, has an associated saint and a name patron. :) and my name fits to all book religions, except that the hebrews call me 'Malak' and the in arabic it is oh ... 'Malak', too.
Peter, T(h)omas, Fred(dy)(deric), Frank(ciscus), Marry(an) etc. p.p.
Nearly every christian name
Lucklily I have a more high name, simlly Angelo
Statistics (Score:2)
All that means is that the selection process has some small error rate. Lets say the list of all travellers is 200 million*. That's about a 1.4% error rate (false positives). Not bad.
Of course, its a bitch for those caught on the list for no good reason. Which is why some quality control measures need to be implemented to improve this number.
*Don't rely heavily on this number. I just pulled it out of my ass to illustrate error rates when selecting a small subset out of a large population.
40% of 680,000 is useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it.... a group of 20 people could do major damage to the U.S. If I had cells of 5 people in a few states.... I could cause wide spread chaos and fear. If they were watching 100 people, I'd think the list was excellent. If they were watching 500 people, I'd think the list was almost prudent. That they are watching 680,000 people? That list is USELESS. Needle in a haystack useless.
If there ARE plots to hurt Americans, we need much better, much TIGHTER scrutiny of specific individuals... A Terrorist Watch List, to be effective, should have the top 50 suspects, and their closest associates. 500 people at the most.
That list didn't catch the Boston Bomber..... even though Russia TOLD US he might be a problem. Needle in a haystack.... Forget the 40%. The sheer number of people on that list makes it useless. Lets face it, there are probably a few hundred people out of 300 million that really need watching.
I honestly doubt there are more than a handfull of people inside the US that have: actual terrorist desires, actual terrorist connections, an actual plan to hurt people, and enough fanaticism to overcome the fear of Gitmo or Death. There might be more with one or two of these, but look around you... if we're in so much danger, where's the actual DANGER? Since Sept. 11th, we've had ONE guy, the boston bomber... ok, and a bunch of right wing soverign citizen types.
Actually, I'm much more afraid of a crazy american trying to topple the government (all by himself, of course) than an actual terrorist.
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Yeah, the rest of the world is afraid of your politicians, too.
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If I had cells of 5 people in a few states.... I could cause wide spread chaos and fear.
If you owned TV networks, newspapers and such you could do it very efficiently. You don't need to directly hurt anyone or mess around with bombs to cause terror.
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Well, that crazy American would be a defacto terrorist in such cases, but *shrugs*. I'm more concerned with people that are legitimately crazy becase they may not be on any list and just randomly snap on go on rampages. The best way to mitigate the 'random crazies' is to encourage mental health checks much akin to health checks and to take the dangerous toys out of their hands. But lets be frank, in America neither of those things will happen.
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Exactly the entire effort is wrong headed. If someone wants to cause a calamity they can.
Consider the west. You don't even need cells of 5 people, if you just had 20 people that all agreed they were going to drive out some highway in 20 different areas out west and start a wild fire all on the same day it could easily be enough to exhaust fire fighting resources. All of the could accomplish that with no training and supplies they could acquire at any gas station on the way to job without raising any susp
And that's ignoring the real flaw of the system (Score:4, Informative)
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Why do terrorists need a team? (Score:2)
A successful terrorist doesn't necessarily need to join a club. Look at the villains our vast comic-book history: they're almost all scarier when they act alone and not as part of some terror franchise.
Linux users are on that list... (Score:2)
http://www.securitronlinux.com... [securitronlinux.com]
http://www.techspot.com/news/5... [techspot.com]
You gotta love how "scared" they are of us. They have NO clue.
No terrorist ties (Score:3)
Well we know what to get them for Christmas then
Heres a marketing opportunity, ties with the logos of the FSF, GreenPeace PETA, Sierra Club, Pirate Bay, or even Charles Schwab (they do IRA's)
Only 40%? (Score:2)
I'm surprised.
Unorganized terrorism is bad. The real problem is (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to say it, and I know this will go against the common feeling here, but I think TFS misses the point. Misses by some distance, actually.
Timothy McVeigh wasn't, to my knowledge, associated with any recognized terrorists organizations. That doesn't mean he shouldn't have been on a list of people the FBI is concerned about. Whether or not they are known to be a member of a known terrorist group isn't the important question. (Note also the difference between "we don't know which group they are affiliated with" vs "we know they aren't communicating with any group"). If someone is acting like a terrorist, such as buying explosives on the black market, the government should probably make a note of that fact, regardless of what groups they are associated with or not associated with.
The information in the report that is more concerning to me is that they have added 430,000 names to the "terrorist-related" database in the last four years. That sounds like far too many people. I was surprised the report said they REMOVED 50,000 names in those same four years. That's good news. I'm also concerned about the EFFECTS of being in this database. If there were that many people on the no-fly list, that would be troubling, but I don't think that's the case. If a listed person flies to the middle east and back and that triggers a notification to authorities so they can include that information in their larger understanding of what's going on, that's less troubling.
We should be asking "how is this list used?" and "what ARE the criteria to be put on this list?"
Those, I think, are more important questions than "how many act alone or in small groups, as opposed to recognized organizations?"
Define "known" (Score:4, Insightful)
I know, that sounds like defining "is" or "sex with that woman" but...
TFA indicates that they have no "recognized terrorist group affiliation ties". So does that parse to
(1) American citizens who have no ties to a terrorist group
(2) no known ties to a terrorist group, but the NSA could have metadata that shows contact with one or multiple known members of those groups,
(3) ties to groups which we suspect may have terrorist motives/wings/connections but are not currently recognized as terrorist groups
(4) ties to or current or prior foreign citizenship from state which sponsor or harbor terror groups
Option (1) is what the article would suggest. Here's a similarly ambiguous statement, which is 100% truthful: "Of the 280,000 people on the list who have no recognized terrorist group affiliation ties, none are identified in the article as being Americans citizens." Of course, the infographic indicates that, of the 660,000 people on the watchlist, 3300 are American citizens (0.5%), but not that any of those 3300 are in the unaffiliated group. Which is why I suggest items (3) and (4), which (I'm guessing) make up the vast majority of those in the 40%.
Misleading headline (Score:2)
The TSDB tracks names, not people. (Score:2)
There is a many to many mapping of those. (Should be many to one, but nothing is perfect.)
That is, my slashdot user name is one "name", so is my "real" name that people call me, which is not the full name on my birth certificate. So that's three names for one person.
Also, not all terrorist groups are in the middle east, or Muslim. Several are right here in the US, and Christian. (Or Jewish, not sure if any atheist groups are in the US).
Terrorist Sleeper Database (Score:2)
Perhaps they simply put all Doe's and Smith's into the database? (yes, the ' is incorrect but makes more clear the does and Does :) )
Same as the 60's (Score:2)
The govt had a communist list full of people that the administration did not like.
The "terror list" is honestly nothing more than a shit list.
113 comments thus far (Score:2)
Aka, 113 new names on that list!
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Aka, 113 new names on that list!
Anonymous Coward is appearing so much that s/he will soon be on the most wanted list
Amazing (Score:2)
If you remember how low their standards are for marking someone as affiliated with a terrorist group, this 40% must be super-whitebread middle-Americans who have never met a foreigner.
Travel ought to be a RIGHT, not PRIVILEGE (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhere somehow someone slowly turned travel to be a privilege, which the Executive can withdraw at a whim. It ought to be explicitly declared a right, which only the Judiciary can suspend — after a trial.
And it is not just airtravel — under Obama, Bush-created TSA are expanding their "jurisdiction" over all other mass transit [nytimes.com], nor can you drive a personal car without the government's permission (driver's license). And having somebody else drive you without a government's permission is troublesome [thefreetho...roject.com] too.
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then it means that 60% from this list have terrorist ties ? Good result.
No. No it's not. Not for any meaning of "good result".
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Just add a few more confirmed non terrorists and we habe a ratio of 50 : 50!
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I suspect it's much lower.
They know that 40% have nothing to do with terrorism, and one suspects it's much higher than that.
Basically they're taking a scatter-shot approach, and don't need to justify it, and don't give a damn that they're impacting people's lives with bad information.
These guys would be just as happy to go with the "everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise model", where the proven otherwise occurs when you're dead.
It makes it so much easier to be fascists when you don't need to justify your lists of people to watch out for.
They've already more or less admitted that they have absolutely no control with these lists, and that any agency, for any reason, without any actual evidence can add someone to the watch lists.
This allows them to be both a malicious cancer and incompetent morons without recourse.
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I can't be bothered to read the article but the blurb above just say that 40% have no known connection with terrorist groups - not that they aren't potential terrorists.
Timothy McVeigh didn't have connections with terrorist groups - but he was a terrorist.
Ted Kaczyski was yet another terrorist without terrorist connections.
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You're misunderstand the point. This is simple logic.
A terrorist can have an affiliation with a group, or act independently.
So, a person can be in three states:
A: not a terrorist,
B: a terrorist without group affiliation
C: a terrorist with an affiliation.
The list contains 60% of the people in group C. 40% are either A or B. All of the ones that are B still fit the criteria for the watch list, so those are valid. There isn't enough info to tell us if the distribution is 60% C, 40% B, and 0% A (which would be
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're preaching to the converted on the shitty implementation of this list. I don't support or defend it.
I just don't like people drawing a conclusion from a statement that isn't consistent with it.
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:4)
My wife is probably on that list. She ordered two small pressure cookers via Amazon recently one for her and one for our daughter. But it was TWO. Automated add to terror list.
You should see that this is a good thing overall. The quicker this list can be proven worthless in the eyes of everyone, the faster it will become a heated target within politics, ripe for attack. It's own absurdity will remove it's power to abuse.
I somehow doubt that. In my experience absurdity is no obstacle for a policy; especially one driven by fear. As flawed at it is, if we get rid of the list terrorists will start downing planes left and right. You wouldn't want that, would you? Would you?!
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They've already more or less admitted that they have absolutely no control with these lists, and that any agency, for any reason, without any actual evidence can add someone to the watch lists.
Let's think this through for a minute... So you would rather that the list be made up of persons with known terrorism group allegiances, and that any and all supporting information also be cataloged in the same place so that the list is audit-ready to outline exactly who is a terrorist, why, and how we know that? Yeah fucking right. The list itself would be a roadmap for how the US finds and tracks terrorists. You're just going to have to unwad your panties on this one, you don't get to decide who the defense department targets since you are completely unqualified to do so and frankly, don't know shit about mitigating the risk of terrorism.
Apparently, the people in charge are also completely unqualified. By your logic, we should simply sit back until they've fingered everyone as a potential terrorist. Then there won't be anyone left to complain.
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
They've already more or less admitted that they have absolutely no control with these lists, and that any agency, for any reason, without any actual evidence can add someone to the watch lists.
Let's think this through for a minute... So you would rather that the list be made up of persons with known terrorism group allegiances, and that any and all supporting information also be cataloged in the same place so that the list is audit-ready to outline exactly who is a terrorist, why, and how we know that? Yeah fucking right. The list itself would be a roadmap for how the US finds and tracks terrorists. You're just going to have to unwad your panties on this one, you don't get to decide who the defense department targets since you are completely unqualified to do so and frankly, don't know shit about mitigating the risk of terrorism.
We don't need a list at all. We didn't need one before 9/11/2001 and we don't need one now. The CIA and whomever else were tracking the hijackers before they attacked. They just failed to stop them for whatever reason. Two of them were living with an FBI informant for crying out loud. We didn't need a list to know they were with Al Qaeda and where they lived in the country.
We don't need a list. And no speech about how we need Col. Jessup up on that wall will convince me otherwise.
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It means 60% on that list are suspected of having terrorist ties. It does not mean they really do have terrorist ties, and it does not mean the suspicion is reasonable. In other words, that 60% would need to be further categorised before it becomes a meaningful statistic.
The 40% on the other hand is already a meaningful statistic.
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaningful enough for one to conclude that if the real numbers were out there, they'd be doing about as well as random chance (hey, they have a 50/50 chance of being right), and quite probably are doing FAR worse.
If they're admitting that 40% don't have any ties, you can probably assume that the number of people who don't belong on the list is much higher.
This is what happens when you have secret lists, and no evidentiary threshold to apply to put people on it.
Overall, I'm going to conclude these agencies are at least 40% incompetent.
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> Meaningful enough for one to conclude that if the real numbers were out there, they'd be doing about as well as random chance (hey, they have a 50/50 chance of being right), and quite probably are doing FAR worse.
Lots of medical tests are worthwhile with a lot more than 50% false positives. The problem with this 40% statistic is that it falls well short of traditional thought that it's better to let 10 guilty go free than convict 1 innocent. If this were just a list that got you watched it would be one
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Sure, and there are objective criteria involved in those, and objective results.
This list boils down to some police officer, informant, agent, intercept, or disgruntled asshole said "I think he's a terrorist, and I have nothing to support that".
It then goes into the ever growing list of people whose lives will be fucked with for no good reason, and to justify these spy agencies and their lists full of terrible data.
You're damned r
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There is also a difference in success rates to keep in mind.
A cheap medical test that flags 50% falsely for an illness (and sends them to the more expensive test to be cleared) but almost NEVER clears someone who is actually sick is much better than one that is as likely to clear you as flag you if you ARE sick.
This terrorist list? We have no idea how many terrorists slip through the net, though given the lack of daily bombings it's probably very very very few - simply because there are very very very few t
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Overall, I'm going to conclude these agencies are at least 40% incompetent.
That may be true generally, but unfortunately they appear to be 100% competent at at least one thing: cashing the blank check Congress has given them.
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No. It means the 60% of the list are suspected of having terrorist ties.
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Ah, no. It just means that for 40% they are absolutely sure they are innocent, for the others they have no clue. I.e. a random person off the street would be in the 60%.
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I bet half of ar15.com is on that list.
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I highly doubt it, given the government's abject terror of dubbing any right-wing group or action as "terrorist." Remember, terrorists are, by definition, brown people.
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol... [theatlantic.com]
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
After the Boston Marathon Bombing, the tea party were the first people blamed. The shooter of the judge and congresswomen in Arizona was also blamed on conservatives (even though it turned out the guy was a liberal.)
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http://www.infowars.com/will-o... [infowars.com]
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ob... [prisonplanet.com]
The media used the term "anti-gov" types, patriots, and extreme right wingers. I didn't see any reference to neo-nazis. The media have gone out of it's way to link those terms with the tea party and you damn well that was the implication.
In any case, it turned out the right-wing "extremest" had nothing to do with the attack.
Also, show me the evidence of all the right wing nutjobs bombings and shootings and I can show you that the progressiv
We've weaponized the IRS, whynot the terrorist DB? (Score:2)
Let's see who gets a FOIA request for their entry criteria and see what it takes to get into this DB. I've read of at least 2 stories (Army and FBI) where government sensitivity training is already classifying some conservatives or Christians as "extremist", somehow forgetting about the people with the black flag that have a stated goal of terminating all of us.
“It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
—Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna
"...the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded.”
—Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi
They Might Be Giants (the movie, you nimrods) (Score:3)
Re:So 60% positive ? (Score:4, Insightful)
1% of 680,000 is still 6,800. You really think even that many citizens could be proved to be terrorists?!
I suspect even 1% is at least an order of magnitude too high (assuming the number of bona-fide terrorists on the list is non-zero, which it might not be).
Re:What a shocker! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of us (on /. anyway) realized right after 2001 that the "We're trying to catch terrorists!" excuse would be used to steamroll over the rights and protections of pretty much EVERYONE. The T E R R O R I S T boogeyman has become a goddamned golden license to do anything for the CIA, NSA, FBI, ATF, etc.--all the way down to the local yokel sheriff who uses his new toys and tools to spy on his wife.
It was never about terrorism. It was about exploiting terrorism to create the police state they always wanted.
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There's no need to even postulate that they want to create a police state; it's simply the cheapest, easiest way to appear to be responding decisively to a threat. When it's cheaper and easier to ignore freedoms than protect them on the path to security, and security is the topic of the moment, what vote-hunting politician of any stripe is going to give a damn?
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Re:What a shocker! (Score:5, Insightful)
According to NSA's current spying policy, it's pretty clear that they see that world has two kinds of people in it. Those who have been found to be terrorists, and those who haven't been found to be terrorists yet.
One of the most revolutionary aspects of Western sense of justice has been presumption of innocence. Throughout the history, presumption of guilt was far more common in justice systems everywhere. That's why the most common way to question suspects was torture.
This is simply the security and justice apparatus degrading into it's more natural state due to lack of stringent oversight.
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Actually, pretending not to be a terrorist is a sure sign that you are. And not pretending, well,...
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"Are you a terrorist?"
"Me? NO!"
"That's exactly what a terrorist would say..."
High success rate or lots of unknowns? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have expected that well over 90% of people on the terror list have nothing to do with terrorism. So, this number is actually quite low, and if true, means that (1) the government is successful in identifying terrorists, and (2) there are really LOTS of terrorists on the planet, which is really worrying.
I strongly suspect that 40% are confirmed false positives. Then there is a large group that they don't know yet, but who are just innocent and mostly harmless.
Re:High success rate or lots of unknowns? (Score:5, Interesting)
Example:
Jeff is a Terrorist.
Jeff has a brother named Bill.
Bill has a wife named Jessica, a child named Mary, friends named Sarah, Mitchell, and Parker, a boss named Paul, goes to a bank on 53rd st. who employs 31 people, he goes to a grocery store on 17th ave. who employs 44 people,
This could very well be controlled spin to ensure that the numbers are propped up to make it look like they are mostly accurate based on the undefined term "links / associations", which could be as loose or as specific as you want it to be.
One would hope that that would mean providing aid in some way rather than "I know him", or "I know someone who knows him", or worse, "I've once spoken to him" or "I've once spoken to someone whose spoken to him" but we frankly don't know.
Simply a devils advocate answer on my part. May very well be that the remaining parties on the list are there for good reason and the 40% here are purely accidental inclusions. I'd personally suspect that there's an ex-girlfriend or two that made the list somehow, someway to otherwise make life hard following a bad breakup.
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If they are on the list for a good reason, why are they not in jail, or dropped from the list, by now? It's been ten years, and the government has watched their every step. Surely they would have done something illegal by now.
(The government has watched their every step, right? I mean, these people are so dangerous that we can't let them fly. Surely, they can't be just let loose unsupervised in 2D-society.)
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That's the strange thing about the No Fly list. If the people are dangerous and they find out they can't fly (which could really only be because they were on the No Fly list) then wouldn't that make them more likely to do something. Hell, it's the sort of thing that is going to anger someone who wasn't dangerous and had no inclinations to hurt anyone. Sure, they likely still won't hurt anyone but suddenly protesting and fighting against the power of the government doesn't seem that outrageous when the govt
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Kevin Bacon is a terrorist!
Useless, and more useless. (Score:2)
So 40% of the people on the list either have nothing to do with terrorism, or are independent terrorists, or are sufficiently sneaky that they don't know what group they belong to but not sneaky enough not to attract attention.
And 60% of the people are suspected of having ties to terrorist groups.
So anywhere between 0% and 100% of the people in either category could be terrorists.
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I believe the official line from the government is:
If you see something, say something
this could be fun go through the phone book a give anonymous tips of random people for common innocuous things that the govenment considerer possible warning signs and see how big we can inflate the list until no one is allowed to fly in the US.
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Why is this so surprising? This is the watch list. Kindof like a tornado watch. A tornado has not been spotted yet but the conditions are
right. They have strong ties and/or other reasons to be suspected. If they were a known terrorist then they should be arrested so almost
by definition the watch list and even the "cannot fly" list should be primarily suspected terrorists not actual terrorists.
A list like this is probably natural in any investigation but just like any suspect list it's what you do with
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It's probably a matter of how to define 'nothing'. Obviously there aren't that many genuine terrorists in existence (though US foreign policy will fix that sooner or later).
The purpose of the watch list is to be a Big List(tm) so that the less-informed members of the public will believe that the politicians are Doing Something(tm).
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"they have No Terrorist Ties", doesn't mean they shouldn't be monitored, If I say "I want to blow up the white house", as far as I know, I have never met a member of a terrorist organization, its not like they go around with a badge saying terrorist, I have no terrorist ties but I have acted in a way that may make me a suspect. On the other hand just because my ex-partners boyfriend's cousin, is a suspected terrorist doesn't me I am likely to be one, even though I have "ties" whatever that means.
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so many documents
Yes. But the exact number is classified.
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Posting on Slashdot? Watchlist.
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I'm pretty sure they watch slashdot. I posted about how 2nd amendments nutters are full of shit [slashdot.org] because they act like it's their wet dream to stop government tyranny with their guns, but haven't done a damn thing once it was revealed the government completely ignores the 4th amendment. Three days later some AC posts this stupid fishing attempt [slashdot.org] looking for other people to attack the NSA with him. Right. That's a completely legitimate inquiry AC. Did they teach you that one in narc school?
Anyway, welcome to t
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Hamas kill innocent people (random rockets on Israel) -> all Palestinians are terrorists.
US Government kill innocent people (signature strikes with drones) -> all Americans are terrorists.
Oh yes, I see the logic. No flaw at all. (/sarcasm)