LawMeme LawMeme Yale Law School  
LawMeme
Search LawMeme [ Advanced Search ]
 
 
 
 
FBI Watch List Out
Posted by Steven Wu on Wednesday, November 20 @ 09:33:17 EST Governance
According to CNN, the FBI has lost control of its watch list of people wanted for questioning after the 9/11 attacks. The list is now in the hands of several private agencies, including news organizations, businesses, and law enforcement agencies. It has also shown up on several web sites (the reason why this story is being posted here), although a cursory search hasn't turned it up.

What is upsetting about this release is that the watch list doesn't include just suspects; it also includes any person wanted for questioning by authorities, including people who the FBI knows have nothing to do with the terrorist attacks (or with terrorism in general).

And it seems as though the watch list was released deliberately (although that isn't entirely clear). At the very least, Ashcroft defends the release of the list with these words: "We need to find ways to share as much information with individuals as is possible to make every American, whether they are in an industry or business or in law enforcement or in their families, capable of enhancing their security by being aware and alert."

Of course, this justification doesn't seem to recognize that the list may do a poor job of identifying people who are actually security risks. That is, there may very well be a poor correlation between how dangerous the people on the watch list really are, and how dangerous people will think the people on the watch list are. I wonder how soon it'll be before we get a case from somebody harmed by his/her name being on the list, even when there's no good reason for his/her name being there.

The CNN story is here.

 
Login
Nickname

Password

If you don't have an account yet, you can register here.
Related Links
· CNN
· FBI
· here
· More about Governance
· News by Steven Wu


Most read story about Governance:
FBI Watch List Out

Options

Printer Friendly Page  Printer Friendly Page

Send to a Friend  Send to a Friend
"User Login" | Login/Create an Account | 3 comments | Search Discussion
Threshold
  
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.

Re: FBI Watch List Out (Score: 1)
by brian on Wednesday, November 20 @ 12:42:15 EST
(User Info | Send a Message)
This was sent out on the Politech mailing list...


Here's a copy of the Venezuelan list mentioned in the WSJ article:

http://llibertat.com/lopelat/terroristas.pdf

I've mirrored a copy here:

http://zem.squidly.org/cache/terroristas.pdf

..and converted it to plain text (with very poor formatting):

http://zem.squidly.org/cache/terroristas.txt


I can't vouch for its authenticity; the document has been modified by
segured.com and translated into Spanish somewhere along the way.


--Brian


[ Reply to This ]

Re: FBI Watch List Out (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, November 20 @ 21:38:39 EST
Could well be dangerous. No idea if this was accurate.

Of course, I seem to recall a cry earlier from people after the questioning was done, demanding to know who was questioned. There was much gnashing of teeth over "secret questioning and detention." Obviously both things are privacy and civil liberties risks: secret questioning, or public questioning. Not sure how the government can avoid doing one or the other, though.


[ Reply to This ]

"User Login" | Login/Create an Account | 3 comments | Search Discussion
Threshold
  
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.


Leges humanae nascuntur, vivunt, moriuntur
Human laws are born, live, and die

Contributors retain copyright interests in all stories, comments and submissions.
Everything else copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project.

This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions
set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later.
The latest version is currently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/.

You can syndicate our news with backend.php