Air Marshals Place Innocents on Secret Watch List

An anonymous reader writes "The Denver Channel 7 News reports that federal air marshals are operating under a quota for reporting a minimum number of suspicious travelers which is resulting in innocent people being placed on a secret government watch list. From the article: 'These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR.'"

Comments

Re:oblig. 1984 reference

[Tackhead]

> > "Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they did nothing wrong," said one federal air marshal.
>
> 2006.07.25 DenverChannel malsaid "unorthodox" as "suspicious". rectify.

2006.07.25 cvd6262 malsaid oldspeak "unorthodox" as "facecrime" rewrite fullwise.

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could igve you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself, anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face, was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime"

ref unbook 1984, author unperson orwell

Please read the related article.....

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

There is an article linked to from that page about how horribly mismanaged the Federal Air Marshals Service is.

Re:Ayn Rand was an optimist.

[ethereal]

Being on a "watch list" is worse than being an accused (but innocent) criminal, since there's no formal way to challenge that status. The quote seems apt to me.

HERE is the program for the broke patriots

[megaditto]

Too cheap to fly? Got a car? Love America and hate terrorists?

Sign up for Highway Watch brought to you by DHS and the American Trucking Association!

http://www.highwaywatch.com/newtoHWW/index.html

Re:Justice, in America?

[StikyPad]

What are you talking about?!?!? The U.S. incarceration rate in 2004 was the highest in the world, at 724 per 100,000 population. Second was Russia, at 532 per 100,000. Obviously we're doing something right, catching all those criminals. We're number one!

Re:Guy I know is on the list

[BandwidthHog]

My mom’s boyfriend is on the list. He drives a fuel tanker, so he gets briefings from Homeland Security as they are considered terrorist targets. When he gets on a plane he’s a suspected terrorist, but when he’s in his truck the feds want him armed.