I was just looking at an article where the various Republican presidential candidates were asked for their opinions about whether or not individuals on the Terror Watch List should be prevented from buying guns.
Leaving the gun issue aside for a moment, what potential intrusions might a watched individual have to endure? Is there any sort of due process involved in getting on the list? Do individuals know they are on the list? If someone is on the list and they feel that it’s in error, how do they go about clearing their name?
Is there any sort of due process involved in getting on the list? = No.
Do individuals know they are on the list?= not until it hits them.
If someone is on the list and they feel that it’s in error, how do they go about clearing their name?= difficult and expensive.
And it’s full of errors: “The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General has criticized the list for frequent errors and slow response to complaints. An OIG audit found that 38% of a 105 record sample contained inaccuracies.”
Some articles:
*The Department Of Homeland Security is known for being somewhat overzealous with its terrorist watch list—Nelson Mandela was infamously on the list as late as 2008, for instance. Hundreds of thousands of people are routinely placed on the list, often for very minimal reasons.
On Tuesday, the world got another glimpse into the baffling choices the federal government sometimes makes when conservative writer and Fox News pundit Stephen Hayes revealed that he had been placed on the list.*
But then if you were to be mistakenly added to a list, you probably wouldn’t know – unless it stopped you from flying. The government has been extremely secretive about the names on the various watch lists. If you were to learn that you were wrongly placed on a watch list, good luck getting off it. As Scahill and Devereaux reported, you can file a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, which begins a review “that is not subject to oversight by any court or entity outside the counterterrorism community.”