Two closely related media stories have appeared in recent weeks regarding the so-called “no-fly list” or “Terrorist Watch List”. The first had to do with government numbers revealed in a Virginia lawsuit, that there have been more than 1.5 million names added to the watch list in the last five years, virtually all of those (99%) submitted for consideration from a very wide range of sometimes questionable sources. The second story was even more disturbing: a relatively new government leak site called “The Intercept” has made available the 166-page 2013 document titled “Watchlisting Guidance”, which spells out how you may end on that list, and provides virtually no guidance on how to get off of it. Unfortunately, the space available in this forum is far too little to provide much of the very troubling details, but for those who would like to ruin the rest of your day reading about government run amok, we offer the source of my dismay: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/07/23/blacklisted/
A few disturbing tidbits: the secret “nomination” process to tag you as a potential terrorist does not require “concrete facts” or “evidence”, but does allow undefined “fragmentary information”, “reasonable suspicion”, “rational inferences”, and in some cases an entire category of people may be included – which, in my view, amounts to the “profiling” that the government says it would never do. You can be listed because you appear on someone else’s telephone or email list, and lest I forget one of the more indecipherable factoids, it allows for dead people and their families to be on the list.
We cannot hang this one solely on TSA, whose principal interest lies currently with civil aviation passengers at your airport (although technically, their jurisdiction extends into other modes of transportation as well). The cover of the document lists 19 federal agencies who have many other reasons for tracking suspects that have nothing to do with air travel, which probably explains some of the depth and breadth of government paranoia in this guidance, which feeds into the same no-fly list. The criteria are laughably vague: for example, Facebook and Twitter posts are sufficient, and to quote the guidance, “although irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary, to be reasonable, suspicion should be as clear and fully developed as circumstances permit.” In other words, no-fly selectees can forget about due process; nominations are “presumptively valid” until proven otherwise, and there is no rational way for you to know about it up front, or do anything about it afterwards.
It can get very personal: the Federal list can be shared with local law enforcement, certain other governments, and some unnamed private entities, which can affect everything from your credit rating to your ability to get a job – especially one requiring a security clearance, and in some cases just to travel on vacation. And watch what happens when you get pulled over for running a stop sign, and Officer Friendly checks your license to find out you – yes, you – are on the terrorist watch list. You will make his day back at the station house. Kinfolk from Kentucky and businessmen from Baltimore have no idea who blew the whistle on them, or why, and have no reasonable means to know about or correct the error, and will have to live with it for roughly forever.
Having been an FAA and TSA security analyst myself, I understand the need for some such information, but it needs to be collected and managed MUCH more rationally and responsibly. In preparing this article, I spent several hours reviewing the 166-page government document, simply trying to extract the most important details for this brief discussion. After each couple of pages, I had to continually re-prioritize the selections because each seemed more intolerable than the one before. If you have been interested enough to read this far, I highly recommend that you follow the link at the end of the first paragraph above. You will either be very troubled or very angry. I continue to be both.
