Terror Lists Long And Flawed

The watch lists used to screen airline travelers have more than 115,000 names on the list, including names of dead and imprisoned terrorists, Saddam Hussein, Bolivian president Evo Morales, and common names Robert Johnson, Gary Smith and John William, according to CBS News which acquired a copy of the list.

One person who was not surprised is former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, who was retiring from the bureau’s al Qaeda task force just as the list was being put together.

"I know in our particular case they basically did a massive data dump and said 'Ok anybody that’s got a nexus to terrorism, let’s make sure they get on the list,'" Cloonan explains. "And once that train left the station, or once that bullet went down range. There was no calling it back. And that is where we are."

The person who oversaw the project is Donna Bucella, who has run the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center since it began operations in 2003.
Her group is responsible for evaluating the information submitted by the various intelligence agencies and actually compiling the list.

The 45,000 name long no-fly list and the 75,000 name long selectee list (the former are banned from flight, the latter automatically get extra-screening) also did not have the names of suspects under investigation in England. The government has long kept sensitive information about investigative targets off the list, because the lists are given to airlines, which do the checking.

The long delayed Secure Flight program is intended to centralize that effort, but successive privacy scandals and the programs inability to pass a GAO audit have kept the program from going into effect.

The full story is here and there are videos too. Oddly the story is rife with amateur copy-editing errors, which I guess, is an homage to the flawed list.

Photo: Way Opening