Man fragt sich, warum so intensiv anderswo nach welchen gesucht wird, wenn sie selber soviele haben..

Die US-amerikanische Bürgerrechtsorganisation ACLU hat heute gemeldet, dass inzwischen eine Million Namen auf der Terrorist Watch List der Vereinigten Staaten stehen und ruft Menschen, die davon ausgehen, dass sie auf der Terror-Liste stehen und etwa Probleme beim Fliegen hatten, dazu auf, sich über das Watchlistformular zu melden.

Mehr dazu in Drop the Pilot und bei der ACLU: ACLU Backgrounder on Aviation Watch Lists. Auf der Liste stehen z.B. bereits Tote (Saddam Hussein), Robert Johnson (und es gibt mind. 12 Männer mit dem Namen, die über Schwierigkeiten berichten), Evo Morales (Präsident von Bolivien), diverse US-Senatoren etc. Viele tatsächlich als Terroristen gesuchte Personen stehen nicht drauf, angeblich um die Fahndung nicht zu gefährden.

Die ganze Meldung

Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names (7/14/2008)

ACLU launches online watch list complaint form

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: (202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON, DC – The nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one
million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil
Liberties Union based upon the government’s own reported numbers for
the size of the list.

"Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ’suspicious
characters,‘ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become
trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of
escape," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington
Legislative Office. "Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening
Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it
has to be done soon."

Fredrickson and Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology
and Liberty Program, spoke today along with two victims of the watch
list: Jim Robinson, former assistant attorney general for the Civil
Division who flies frequently and is often delayed for hours despite
possessing a governmental security clearance and Akif Rahman, an
American citizen who has been detained and interrogated extensively at
the U.S.-Canada border when traveling for business.

"America’s new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for
what’s wrong with this administration’s approach to security: it’s
unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the
innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives
of millions of travelers in this country," said Barry Steinhardt,
director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. "It must be fixed
without delay."

"Putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the
list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of
innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security
resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning," said Steinhardt. "I doubt
this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist."

Controls on the watch lists called for by the ACLU included:

• due process
• a right to access and challenge data upon which listing is based
• tight criteria for adding names to the lists
• rigorous procedures for updating and cleansing names from the lists.

The ACLU also called for the president – if not this one then the
next – to issue an executive order requiring the lists to be reviewed
and limited to only those for whom there is credible evidence of
terrorist ties or activities. The review should be concluded within 3
months.

In February, the ACLU unveiled an online "watch list counter," which
has tracked the size of the watch list based on a September 2007 report
by the inspector general of the Justice Department, which reported that
it was growing by 20,000 names per month.

The ACLU is also announcing today the creation of an online form
where victims of the watch list can tell us their stories. We will
collect those stories and use them (with permission) in various ways to
advance our advocacy. A link to the form is available online at www.aclu.org/watchlist or directly at www.aclu.org/watchlistform.

The watch list counter and other materials are available at: www.aclu.org/watchlist