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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?
Board a plane for a domestic or international flight, and you will definitely find out.
We are all on a watchlist because the US government deems itself to be above the law.
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.
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.
I've had you on my watchlist for the last few months because your apartment is across the road from mine and you don't close your bedroom curtains at night. In case it matters, you're in the 10:25-10:35 time slot.
I spoke with a friend on the phone not too long ago, and we may have mentioned a bunch of ECHELON keywords. I don't TOTALly RECALL...;)
My phone did auto-restart though (which it has never done in the 2 years I've had it, no updates either...) after that I only got 3g, and crappy reception in my apartment.
I was like for someone in IT, couldn't you afford a 4G stingray?
I art more snarky, and terse than thou. I art Slashdot!
Do you use the internet? You are on a watchlist. The more interesting question would be which ones, and of course most of us have no way to know.
I spend a lot of time reading and commenting on current events on another site, and I like to back up my comments with citations, so this leads me to Google all sorts of things. Offhand today I've searched for feces swastika (re: the U of Missouri stuff) and officers shot or killed (a story about one officer shooting another off-duty officer). Last night I was reading a thread about the Mazda RDX and so I Googled RDX; RDX is also the name of a military explosive. Around that time I was also searching for various terms related to the Missouri protests.
Some overzealous algorithm might see a person searching for RDX and Mizzou and officer and shooting all within close proximity, and get me on a list I really would rather not be on. That's one of the big problems with automated bulk surveillance, I imagine it's connecting a lot of dots that truly aren't connected.
See you on the list!
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
In my particular case, I first learned I was on a terrorist watch list in 2004, when I renewed my drivers' license.
The lady at DMV informed me of it, and said there would be an additional three-week wait for my license while they did a background check on me.
Ever since, every time I've flown, I've been pulled aside for additional searches and questioning,
The fun part is that there's no way to get off the list. I've now have three Congressman and a Senator from two different States tell me this.
The really infuriating part is that I suffer from an anxiety disorder. The only danger to those around me is if I go off my meds and then fly to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.
Microsoft leads to Bluescreen; Bluescreen leads to downtime; downtime leads to suffering.
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
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)
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.
If the government didn't know about you before, they will after you get hired for a government job. My two-hour background interview lasted four hours because I had to list every I.T. contract job I did since the Great Recession. Security folks frown on the practice of having two jobs at the same time, say a weekday job and a weekend job, which I had to do after being out of work for two years and filing for chapter seven bankruptcy. Living in the same studio apartment for ten years was another flag, as that was inconsistent with being unemployed for two years and filing for chapter seven bankruptcy. We went back and forth on those two points. And then Chinese hackers stole my background file along with millions of other government employees.
congratulations! you're on /.
All helicopters matter!
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"
"it's has the 3 letter code SSSS"
I'm going to be a little skeptical of anything written by someone who can neither spell nor count to 4.
After all these years of Slashdot's misleading headline and trolling torture I honestly thought I could see 5 S's on my boarding pass.
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.
Yes, but not one that you can access or prove that you're on. When I got put on a list that required additional ID checks every time I checked in for a flight there was no way to verify officially that I was on the list or determine what list I was on or challenge my inclusion on the list.
Even the aide from my U.S. Senator's staff (I live in a small state and our elected officials usually try to be helpful with constituents' complaints) who was assigned to help me with the matter could not get verification that I was on a list.
Eventually I got taken off of it (I think -- at any rate I no longer get consistently stopped before check-in and required to undergo additional checks) but there was never any explanation how or what or why.
My name came up as similar to a listed person when I opened a bank account. A banker friend may be able to run your name.
I also got more attention from the TSA, but that may be because I used the same bag for a carry-on that I had previously used to go to the gun range, leaving a bit of powder residue all over the bag.
I assume I'm on a few lists because I work in internet security, meaning I frequent web sites related to hacking and such, plus I (legally) work with fireworks, so I order chemicals and such that could be used to make explosives. Lastly, I'm a conservative who once checked out a Tea Party event, so the current administration is definitely notices that. The IRS started calling after I followed a tea party page on Facebook. Might be coincidence.
"Why should I change my name? He's the one who blows people up!"
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
... courtesy of the Democratic Party's paranoia of the Tea Party
I'm sure my name pops up on several watchlists -
First, I am from China, that was before I ran away from there and end up in US as a refugee
After reaching US I studied, graduated with some fancy degrees and started my career in high tech fields
I have been 'invited' for 'interviews' several times by 'security people', including FBI, concerning my investments, particularly those in businesses which has direct dealings with defense projects. They are also interested in my businesses abroad, especially branches in 'sensitive regions' such as Africa, Russia and China
With all those 'interviews' getting no where, they finally, through IRS, awarded me with a thorough audit
And oh, I forgot to add, when that too came up empty they tried to frame me by linking me to Chinese triad activities
Can't fault them for trying so hard though ...
After all, a minority (Chinese) like me supposed to support the Democratic Party. The problem is I refuse to buy into their bullshit and gave my support to the Tea Party instead
I know how to play the game, after all, I survived the Culture Revolution, where even more brutal 'games' had occurred
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
BTW, having a wireless password of password is just asking for it.
Hello? When it says 'enter password' it won't work if you've changed it from "password" will it? You'd have to re-program it to say 'enter pX?#@V32L9=)4!*7!$%!Ka&%M3zPk82' or whatever clever and unbreakable new word you decide on.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it