1,600 Names Suggested Daily For FBI's Watch List

schwit1 writes with this excerpt from the Washington Post: "During a 12-month period ended in March this year... the US intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a 'reasonable suspicion,' according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week. ... The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are US citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government's 'no fly' list."

Comments

Inefficient System

[Cabriel]

It only requires a few unscrupulous groups to voluntarily suggest names of innocent people to inflate the list, increasing the likelihood of false-positives on any given search and reducing the likelihood of being matched themselves within a meaningful time frame.

Hey... that's how it goes...

[denzacar]

When you invent something - you get to do what you want with it. Even put mayonnaise on top.

Re:Lessons from the STASI

[NFN_NLN]

Here's your precious NYTimes article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

Re:bummer

[tommeke100]

I don't know why I get modded down for what I wrote, maybe because I didn't give any references. So here is an official question asked to the Belgian minister of Foreign Affairs in the Belgian Senate about it. I was wrong about the destination though (but it doesn't matter in this context), it was to Mexico. Also, he isn't merely a left wing politician, he's actually a member of the European Parliament.
http://senat.be/www/?MIval=/Vragen/SchriftelijkeVraag&LEG=4&NR=4398&LANG=nl
It's in Dutch though, here's the google translation in english:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=nl&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsenat.be%2Fwww%2F%3FMIval%3D%2FVragen%2FSchriftelijkeVraag%26LEG%3D4%26NR%3D4398%26LANG%3Dnl&sl=nl&tl=en&history_state0=

Re:How do they define "reasonable suspicion"?

[falconwolf]

They don't. It's modern-day McCarthyism, it's just that no one senator has stepped up to bat and get his name attached to this whole racket.

Sen, Ed Kennedy was on the No Fly list.

Falcon