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Ask Slashdot: How To Determine If One Is On a Watchlist?

Posted by timothy on from the first-rule-of-watchlist-club dept.

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?

13 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Board a plane? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Board a plane for a domestic or international flight, and you will definitely find out.

    1. Re:Board a plane? by viperidaenz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      and a TSA agent is going to know the difference?

  2. All of us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We are all on a watchlist because the US government deems itself to be above the law.

    1. Re:All of us by wyHunter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're engaging in the same generalizations that you decry in others. Lovely, eh?

  3. First Rule About Watchlists by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't ask if you're on the watch list. If you weren't before, you are now.

    Alternatively: Realize that everyone is on a watch list and nothing will happen to you unless you stir up some shit. If you're a journalist investigating this shit your life will be hard. If you're a nerd who likes to Google a lot of shit and post about how you hate the government they'll just laugh at you.

    1. Re:First Rule About Watchlists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't ask if you're on the watch list. If you weren't before, you are now.

      Alternatively: Realize that everyone is on a watch list and nothing will happen to you unless you stir up some shit. If you're a journalist investigating this shit your life will be hard. If you're a nerd who likes to Google a lot of shit and post about how you hate the government they'll just laugh at you.

      The US is not a free country. As much as I think it is good to try and restore our freedoms, I think people need to stop and think before asking too many questions. Most of us have families and careers or want to have... this isn't the 1960s when you could protest the government and assume that the FBI record keeping was so bad that in a few years nobody gave a shit. Once you get on a watch list for being uppity in the 20 teens you are fucked for life. So unless you want to make a career of being against the man and holding up a cardboard sign as the world actually is ending around you, then you should work towards policy changes with polite suggestions made through your elected representatives or actually staying below the radar and becoming part of government and not annoying public officials who may abuse their power over you just because they can.

    2. Re:First Rule About Watchlists by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The US is not a free country. As much as I think it is good to try and restore our freedoms...

      It was never a free country, not for everyone. The reason we're hearing all about "losing our freedoms" is that now it's finally happening to white people who have money.

      When it was just the blacks, or the Indians or the Jews or the Japanese, or whomever, then it was "What a free country we are! And freedom isn't free, y'all."

      But now that Biff Biffington has concerns about back doors in his crypto, it's "HOLY SHIT THIS AIN'T RIGHT!" Well, welcome to the party.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:First Rule About Watchlists by StillAnonymous · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How about using the metric system?

  4. Go easy on the Adderall prescription... by msimm · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Cooking devices and Linux torrents a domestic terrorist do not make. You must be a little on the (possibly overly) cautious side to use Tor (private) for torrents (public) in the first place. FOIA requests would probably work. But a cup of chamomile tea might do you more good in the long run.

    --
    Quack, quack.
    1. Re:Go easy on the Adderall prescription... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In fairness, there is no standard of evidence to be put on these lists. Damned near anybody in law enforcement can put someone on a list, just because they feel like it or have a hunch, or because they don't like you.

      And then you're on a list managed by idiots who have no real idea why you're on the list. Then the idiocy becomes self-fulfilling, because if you're on the list, it must be for a reason.

      If you are on a list, there is a very good chance the people who maintain that list have no idea why. Which means without evidence, documentation, or recourse your life can get somewhat screwed up, and the idiots who maintain the list don't know or care how you got there; which means there's not a damned thing you can do to fix it.

      Really, as long as it's so trivial to put people on the list, there's probably tons of people who are there for no reason at all.

      This whole bullshit notion of you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide is just that ... bullshit. If using Tor is enough to get you on a watchlist, the people who run those lists are idiots, and ignoring things like evidence and probable cause.

      Fascists just love things like that.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Downloading through TOR by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why were you downloading torrents through the TOR network? Its pointless and clogs exit nodes.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  6. Re:Don't even need to board it ... by dbIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's interesting someone can get in trouble in the USA for having the same name as an IRA guy but if you are a Senator it's OK to have raised funds for them and actually met a bunch of the terrorists back when they were setting off bombs in the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._King).

  7. Re:have a friend who works at a bank or airline by Kazoo+the+Clown · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's not the IRS, that's a scammer trying to scare you into sending them a check. The IRS doesn't "call"...