Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
I'd be shocked if I wasn't with the way those paranoid asshats 'work' since I was in the military as a Munitions Systems Specialist (IYAAYAS!), and am an old school computer geek, and several other things that though totally legal, are things the paranoid TLAs (3 letter acronym/agency) has listed as stuff the are paranoid about. So yeah, I always assume they are reading my every posts, and by now their file must be getting full because I like to sprinkle in the occasional keyword like terrorist or explosives just to try and trigger their alert script. I figured if the creeps are spying on me without a warrant and valid suspicions, I should make their work as hard as possible! Personally I haven't met many people from any of those groups, but the few I have were uniformly egotistical, paranoid, irrational, and rather low on the intellect scales. I'm sure there must be somebody intelligent working for them, and pity that poor damned soul.
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.
"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.