Maryland Police Put Activists' Names On Terror List

aaandre writes with word of a Washington Post story which begins: "The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday. The police also entered the activists' names into the federal Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which described a 'primary crime' of 'terrorism-anti-government' and a 'secondary crime' of 'terrorism-anti-war protesters.'" According to the article, "Both [former state police superintendent Thomas] Hutchins and [Maryland Police Superintendent Terrence] Sheridan said the activists' names were entered into the state police database as terrorists partly because the software offered limited options for classifying entries." Reader kcurtis adds "The State Police say they are purging the data, but this is one more example (on top of yesterday's news that datamining for terrorists is not feasible due to false positives) of just how badly the use of these lists can be abused."

Comments

Re:Check yourself,

[argent]

Maybe they didn't have a category for "not guilty" in their database?

Re:All these lists are insane

[Stanislav_J]

All innocent people should be equal in the eyes of the law.

But some are more equal than others.....

Sincerely,
Mr. G. Orwell

New Categories

[Anonymous Coward]

Next categories for database:

terrorism-does-not-watch-Fox-News
terrorism-no-flag-pin
terrorism-no-support-the-troops-magnet
terrorism-fringe-person

Violent passivists

[philspear]

Those idiots should be a lot more worried about violent passivists, not non-violent activists. Granted, the passivists don't do much, but when they do it's a lot bloodier.

Re:no surprise

[MightyMartian]

I'm not surprised, but here is how I feel about it: Let them watch, let them make their stupid list, its up to us to overload them with false positives. That's right I'm advocating fucking with them. Talk about drugs on the phone even if you don't use them, talk about shooting politicians, talk about bombs, the CIA, the NSA, whatever you want. Buy chemicals, buy guns, go to protest, fuckin' call them up and ask them to put you on the list. Who give a shit, they want to waste their time, fuck um waste their time.

Caller: Hi, is Tony there?

Answerer: Tony Cocaine?

Caller: No, Tony Jones.

Answerer: Heroin rifles blowing up New York!

Caller: Um...

Answerer: Bin Laden plastic explosive Tonka Trucks! Eat Presidential kidneys with Senate explosive snacks!

Caller: I've got the wrong number, don't I?

Re:Terrorists?

[Mansing]

They sure don't seem to be terrorists from what anyone has presented. Everyone has the right to be a left-wing, right-wing, religious, gay, slashdot, anti-slashdot, or whatever other type of wingnut they want.

Except those EMACS people ....

Re:In Soviet-America...

[beav007]

What makes you think the final result will be any better than what you have now?

Re:"fringe people"

[mjwx]

That pretty much says it all, doesn't it? The security-state mindset doesn't care what your actual politics are. It cares what kind of person you are. You're either a Good God-Fearing Christian American, in which case everything you do is Good and Right and Just, or you're an Evil America-Hating /C/om/m/u/n/i/s/t/ Terrorist Sympathizer ("fringe person" for short) in which case everything you do is Wrong and must be Punished. And whatever the GGFCA's do to protect themselves from the EAH/C/TS's is by definition The Right Thing To Do, while any complaints the EAH/C/TS's make about their so-called "rights" can safely be disregarded, because, never forget, They Hate America.

What, you haven't figured out its all a popularity contest to make people fit in and conform to idealised stereotypes.

Didn't High School teach you that?

Re:In every country ...

[shutdown -p now]

I see the current two-party system as the ultimate gesture of divide and conquer. Roughly half of the population believes that the other half is wrong and feels a mix of strong negative emotions against it. But the fact is, the whole (non-elite) population suffers, and our power and choices are taken away from us as soon as we believe the polititians' bs and forget that our unity is the only thing more powerful than the elite's tools. ...

Yeah, yeah, but are you for or against abortion???