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Ask Slashdot: How To Determine If One Is On a Watchlist?
An anonymous reader writes: On Slashdot, we joke about it all the time: 'I did a Google search for 'pressure cooker' and I connected a bunch of times to the Tor network to download some Linux distribution .torrent files... I must be on some sort of watchlist now.' There have been news articles about people being questioned in airports and given special attention for being political activists. How can one determine is one is on a watchlist of some sort? Are there any Slashdot users who are knowingly on a watchlist? What sort of suspicious special attention have you received?
Back in the late 1980's going to the 2600 meetings in NYC got you automatically photographed by the FBI. These days, attend a conference such as HOPE or DefCon, and I guarantee you're on a watchlist.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
You are already on a watch list. Somewhere.
After all, most NSA people are geeks, and so they read Slashdot. To the point they did a MITM using a fake Slashdot page.
Oh, and by the way: hi NSA!
A more serious reply is this one: they don't want you to know you are on a watch list. If you represent a serious target, they REALLY don't want you to know. On the other hand, if you have any reason to suspect you are a serious target, assume the worst and unplug now.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The sign is when they won't let you check-in online.
My neighbor's kid has the same name as an IRA terrorist ... so they had to go through loads of crap every time, to explain that he's 3 ... he might be a terror, but he's not a terrorist.
I don't know if they still have problems flying with him or not. (He's now in high school)
This is part of the reason why the 'there are only (x) number of people on the terrorist watchlist' is problematic -- you have (x) people with (y) permutations of their aliases which means (z) people are stopped every time ... except for the people who we deem *so* dangerous that we don't want them to find out they're being watch ... so they're allowed to fly.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Apply for a security clearance for work or to improve looking for gov/mil work.
Look into getting a police check or certificate for local work.
That would induce paperwork see if a person has been placed on a basic, direct national not trusted list.
The "political activists" can face a very passive surveillance just to see who a person talks to, walks with, sends emails, letters, phones, spends hours with.. IM lists, IRC, web 2.0, international VOIP, IM with a person not added to a friends list or not shared with a common third persons IM list, any contact with 1950-80's activists or their work.
A lot of advanced "charity" and "corporate" network tracking is often shared with or sold to gov, mil to see what political connections people make.
If you are a journalist, press, media expect gov backed malware crafted just for your computers, cell phone. No consumer grade protection will have any record of it and view it as normal OS like functionality. Traces of such efforts can point to gov interest in a person.
What are most Western governments looking for at this time is passive collect it all databases that show hops, links, connections, people talking politics, crypto.
Build up too much of an online reputation and have the ability to sway, protect or publish mil or gov whistleblowers material is really when the gov and mil take note.
Crypto and advance maths skills? Creating open source projects with advanced crypto skills passed on from advance university learning that was for placement for mil or gov jobs. Changing from closed source well paid private sector skills to open source crypto.. that will get a lot of gov attention and for anyone in the same project forum, IRC chats, code site.
What books a person buys online on what topics. Years of bulk non fiction can show a person deep in thought about political issues. Some more nonfiction book orders can help with that list..
Basically a person is waiting for enough of a gov database to move form a person of interest to active protest group or political group creation.
Another tracking point is *who* is reading your work, code, looking for you online. If workers with security clearances are been tracked looking up your blog, your work as a journalist, chatroom, code project, as an author...in own time, at home.. your work is an issue for a gov or mil.
University presentations on open, public papers surrounding crypto, gov, mil whistleblowers material even if your nation has freedom of the press, freedom after and of speech.
'How Covert Agents Infiltrate The Internet To Manipulate, Deceive, And Destroy Reputations" (Feb. 25 2014) https://theintercept.com/2014/...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
First, if you're a US citizen or Green Card Holder, or applying for a Green Card or citizenship you're on a passive watch list by the FBI.
This is a thought of as a protective service, an insurance policy provided by the government by investing in you, as a citizen to be a part of this country, and by you choosing to be a part of this country.
What this passive watch list means is - first and foremost - if you show extreme pattern disruptions and interruptions in your behaviors which can be detrimental to your health and/or to others around you - then there could be psychological or other influences occurring to you that may be the product of things outside your control or even awareness through foreign governments and/or malicious company practices and/or any other set of indeterminate and often obscure reasons which warrant FBI investigation.
MOST of these reasons are known as domestic terrorism, it's not sold as such publicly because of the connotation terrorism has with Al Qaida and Bin Laden and the sort, but the effects can be just as detrimental to a large population if not at the very least understood, and in some cases, the risk is mitigated.
Second, this watch list also actively monitors you while you're outside the country - largely because most people aren't aware of how much of a problem human trafficking is when they travel abroad and what the FBI does to mitigate this risk - whether you travel alone or with others. There's other reasons to actively monitor you while abroad, and personally I have been requesting the FBI announces this practice publicly for years and let this be an 'opt-in' service.
The FBI maintains an active watch list for domestic citizens and internationally people and organizations for a literally ever changing variable set of reasons. Back in 2005, for instance, that watch list included keywords used in phone conversations which use 'bomb and president and kill him'. That's evolved dramatically since then, and the list of reasons that you might go from passive monitoring to active all depend on the operation within the organization. This list is not just not publicized, but is typically very dynamic and based on the agency they are dealing with (ie: IRS, Homeland Security, President and/or the Oval Office, etc)
The NSA, like the FBI, is the same way with the dynamic list, with one glaring exception: The focus for the NSA is both prevention of corporate and government espionage and support of counter espionage research, and protection of informational and intelligence assets. So if you represent a credible threat to these, then I can guarantee you you're their watch list and I can guarantee you that your cameras and microphones everywhere you go are in passive listening mode transcribing everything you say and do. Other threats that the NSA pays attention to are largely new technology threats, which has the NSA paying attention to on the wire chatter and the development of new ideas and inventions that might create a risk to the CIA, FBI or NSA.
Central Services is leveraged to disseminate technological threats. Terrorism in any form is the FBI's deal, so Central Services is used to provide intelligence information for these.
The CIA doesn't have watch lists. Period end of story.
How do you determine if you're on watch list?
There's literally thousands of teams within the FBI alone each potentially operating in silos. And while the NSA is less silod, and more hierarchically based, there's no one single watch list that's maintained and largely it's hidden behind layers that even the best agent can't get to.
The short answer is: Unless you're stopped and turned away at the airport. You don't represent an immediate threat to the United States.
But you're not going to know if you're on someone's watch list within any of these agencies.
No one person knows. That's why they call it "Top Secret/ Compartmentalized Local Information"
Compartmentalized.
Read: No one knows.
Sikhs are the good guys. I want to see several of them on a plane. I feel safer anywhere when they're around.
Uh, Canada's largest act of terrorism was committed by Sikh terrorists. Blew up a plane no less.