Report: Cleared people can stay on terror list

The FBI is allowed to keep people on its terrorist watch list even after they have been cleared in court of terrorism-related offenses, The New York Times reports.

That information was gleaned from newly-released documents, attained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center in a Freedom of Information Act request, which detail just how someone ends up on the list.

Inclusion on the list makes life difficult: It invites more intense scrutiny at police stops, blocks noncitizens from entering the country and keeps them off airplanes.

While there an estimated 420,000 names on the list, including as many as 8,000 Americans, the FBI claims there are actually strict procedures for adding people that go beyond hearsay and innuendo.

The F.B.I.'s Terrorist Screening Center controls the list, and its director, Timothy J. Healy, told The Times: "There is a very detailed process that the F.B.I. follows in terms of nominations of watch-listed people."

The Times reports: "The 91 pages of newly disclosed files include a December 2010 guidance memorandum to F.B.I. field offices showing that even a not-guilty verdict may not always be enough to get someone off the list, if agents maintain they still have "reasonable suspicion" that the person might have ties to terrorism."

The "reasonable suspicion" must include corroboration by at least one extra source, according to the Times, and mere "hearsay" is not enough.

Healy also told the Times that many people's fears about being on the list are often unfounded, and intense scrutiny at airports and border crossings happens for many reasons. He said more than 200,000 people have complained to the Department of Homeland Security about their belief that they were wrongly on the list, but fewer than 1 percent of them were actually on it.

[amerilatino]

"...the FBI claims there are actually strict procedures for adding people that go beyond hearsay and innuendo."

Yup, just like it persuaded the government of Puerto Rico to secretly compile dossiers on hundreds of unsuspecting citizens and to blackball them from employment for decades, under the pretext of labelling them as 'subversives' for their political expressions until it was ordered to stop violating these folks' constitutional rights in a class-action lawsuit placed before the Supreme Court. Go ahead, folks, trust the FBI.

[midnightladync]

To think that in the US you can be cleared by a judge and the FBI will still keep you on a list that clearly uses invasive technology to neural monitor and to torture when agents get bored is unbelieveable. It angers me that tax dollars fund a billion dollar project that really violates civil liberties. It angers me that our congressional leaders and President (who taught the Constitution) have done nothing to stop the use of military technology to keep people on a list that is polluted with whistle blowers, witnesses and anyone that a corrupt FBI agent wants to place on this list. Most went on it with the FISA court doing little to ask for needed proof. We even had a FISA court judge resign and nothing was said, we had an NSA Richard Tice go to congress and tell them what was going on and they still did nothing. People open your eyes before they take away all your rights.

[oldman67]

Something to think about! "If tyranny and opression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. James Madison. But a Constitution of government once changed fromk freedom can never be restored. Liberty, once lost is lost forever. John Adams

[RSpringfield]

Let's get this straight...a person who is on the list goes to court to clear their name, pays an attorney, and the government keeps them on the list anyway. First of all, this "guilty until proven innocent" scheme was what our founders were against. Thus, they created a system where one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of his peers. Now that person is hassled anyway because they are on a list. It may have been a case of mistaken identity in the first place. This is terribly wrong.

[wsthomson]

Latest Gallup poll: 49% polled believe the largest threat to our liberty is the US government. I would say they are correct in their assessment.

[antoniof123]

Sure they stay on the list after they have been cleared if you were detained you might be a little angry.

[borysd]

This country is going to the Dogs....cameras everywhere, black lists on everyone,your phone calls intercepted and hard to differentiate the Police from the Military...they have declared war on our constitution and bill of rights!

[lucifersshadow]

The Nazis use to keep records of all the people they considered "enemies of the state", and, I doubt that there really are as many restrictions as the imply when it comes to adding someone to the list.

[Overruled1]

I read that the terrorist watch list has reached 1 million entrys.
I cant imagine so many people are being stalked by the FBI and friends.
If true, this country has worse problems than terrorists.
It is obvious to anyone that can read, that our present home crisis is a direct result of the FBI not doing the job of looking at the biggest banks and the widespread fraud they have committed and yet not one arrest.
Furthermore, people died in the gulf....not the persian gulf, the Gulf of Mexico...who in BP has been arrested for the largest environmental disaster in history ever? The so called "accident" (there are no accidents, only inconvient disasters) occurred during the very event the staff celebrated their so called safety record.
I really wish those goons would get it right.
Instead, they are probably still looking for Bin Laden.

[Overruled1]

Publish the list to the public, and I'll tell you if I'm pissed off or not.