Terrorist Watchlist Has More Than One Million Names

By William Fisher

Hundreds of thousands of people are being wrongly identified because of the government’s wasteful and inefficient management of the nation’s one million-strong terrorist watchlist, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The organization cited a recent report by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which found that the part of the watchlist maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may contain a 35 percent error rate.

The OIG audit also revealed that large portions of the list are governed by no formal processes for updating or removing records.

The ACLU says the audit “confirms that the nation’s watchlist system is massively broken.”

The audit confirmed estimates that the terror watchlist contains 1.1 million names as of December 2008, and that many of them are out of date.

OIG auditors reviewed 68,669 of those identities and found 24,000 out of date. In a closer inspection of the out of date records, the auditors found a majority of this sample did not belong on a watchlist.

What the fuck is wrong with America?

Written By Word Of The Day on April 24th, 2009

What kind of fucking country do you live in where you have to debate whether torturing someone is a crime? What kind of country do you live in when you can spend 3 years prosecuting the President for a consensual sexual act but won’t prosecute a President for authorizing illegal wiretaps and torturing people? What kind of country do you live in where the supposed ’spiritual’ and ‘religious’ leaders think it’s OK to torture non-Christians? What kind of country do you live in where you can’t even use the word ‘torture’ but have to say ‘interrogation techniques’? What kind of country do you live in when their Nuremberg defense (’We were just following orders’) becomes the mantra for not holding war criminals accountable for their actions? What kind of country do you live in where a major candidate in a Presidential primary openly advocates for doubling the size of America’s illegal detention centers and increasing the use of torture?

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Detainee Was Tortured, a Bush Official Confirms

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo detainees to trial, Susan Crawford, concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11 attacks. "His (Mohammed al-Qahtani) treatment met the legal definition of torture," said Crawford.

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Bush, McCain, and Obama? What's the difference?

McCain observes that "in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations", conveniently if temporarily forgetting the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq that he, and practically every other Republican, Democrat, and Independent, supported.

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Who Are The Real Terrorists In Iraq?

An article in the Sunday Telegraph points towards evidence that a secretive and elite unit of the British army is actively engaged in recruiting and training Iraqi insurgents and terrorists as double agents.

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BBC adds fuel to 9/11conspiracy theories - Telegraph

A BBC programme investigating the conspiracy theories of September 11 is expected to prolong speculation that the attacks were perpetrated by the American government.

The investigation into the "mysterious" collapse of the third tower of the World Trade Centre will re-examine questions which an official inquiry was designed to answer.

The 47-storey tower collapsed seven hours after the Twin Towers and has become the subject of heated speculation and a host of conspiracy theories which suggest it was brought down by a controlled demolition.

The final official report on the World Trade Centre is due to be published this month and official investigators are expected to conclude that fire caused the collapse of the third tower.

Fuelling the conspiracy theorists, however, a BBC investigation points out that this would be the first and only skyscraper in the world to collapse solely due to fire.

A programme called the Conspiracy Files says it is trying to "explore man unanswered questions to find out what really happened, and why some people think there was a sinister plot to destroy the building."

W. House ignored FBI concerns on prisoner abuse -probe | Reuters

Top Bush administration security officials ignored FBI concerns over abusive treatment of terrorism suspects, which one agent called "borderline torture," a four-year Justice Department probe found.

The FBI, alarmed by interrogation techniques such as the use of snarling dogs, sexual provocation and forced nudity, clashed with the Defense Department and CIA over their use, said the 370-page report, released on Tuesday by the Justice Department's inspector general.

Congress in 2005 banned the inhumane treatment of prisoners, and the CIA says it has not used "waterboarding," a form of simulated drowning, in five years. But Bush in March vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other abusive techniques.

The new report quotes an FBI agent as objecting that the CIA's interrogation of suspected senior al Qaeda commander Abu Zubaydah was "borderline torture," and said at one point an agent helped care for him in the hospital "even to the point of cleaning him up after bowel movements."

Specific interrogation techniques for Abu Zubaydah were blacked out in the report as classified information, but the CIA has acknowledged he was one of three suspects subjected to waterboarding.

Al-Qaeda No 2 accuses Iran of 9/11 conspiracy theory

By Maggie Michael

OSAMA bin Laden's deputy yesterday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaeda terrorist network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the attacks of 11 September, 2001.

The comments reflected the increasing criticism by Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's No 2, against Iran, which he has accused in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

Zawahri spoke in a two-hour audio clip posted on an Islamic militant website, in which he replied to hundreds of questions submitted on the internet by al-Qaeda sympathisers. One of the questioners asked about the theory that has circulated that Israel was behind the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.

Zawahri accused Iran-backed Hezbollah's al-Manar television of starting the rumour. "The purpose of this lie is clear – (to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history," he said.

"Iran's aim here is also clear – to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq," he added. Iran co-operated with the United States in the 2001 assault on Afghanistan that toppled al-Qaeda's allies, the Taleban.

ABC Leak Tips Off the Terrorists; Al Qaeda's Net Traffic Goes Dark

'Al Qaeda's Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy's system."

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White House leaked classified info to FOX News, tipped off al Qaeda to secret surveillance, destroyed year-long spy effort.

From a Washington Post story: Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda's Secrets

Unbelievable. Seriously. Leaking national security info to Fox News and destroying a year-long surveillance of Al Qaeda should put someone from the Bush Administration in jail. We are in greater danger because of the continued incompetence of George Bush and his minions.

From the Washington Post: A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

Okay, so we know that SITE has some amazingly important intel. They pass it on to the Bush administration. And, it ends up on Fox News.

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