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:All these lists are insane

[Free the Cowards]

No offense, but what's the point of posting a long quote and adding absolutely none of your own words? If I wanted to read Rand, I'd get one of her books.

Re:Check yourself,

[afabbro]

Yeah, and law enforcement tracking and harassing peaceful activists is nothing new either.

Unfortunately, they seem to have backed off since the 1970s. Seriously - is there anything more obnoxious than a snot-nosed black-flag-waving peace activist?