Newly-released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents reveal that the FBI's "terrorist watchlist" - which now has "420,000 names, including about 8,000 Americans" - includes individuals who are not the subject of any investigation and some who the courts have cleared of terrorism charges. This is the latest in a series of recent revelations about the FBI's increasing monitoring and investigation of potentially-innocent Americans.
Placing innocent persons a "terrorist watchlist" raises serious concerns. There are the obvious civil liberties concerns, well articulated in the New York Times by Ginger McCall, a counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center - the organization that obtained the documents:
In the United States, you are supposed to be assumed innocent. But on the watch list, you may be assumed guilty, even after the court dismisses your case.
Not only are we yet-again expected to sacrifice our liberty, but the FBI is wasting precious national security resources maintaining a list of "terrorists" that includes individuals cleared by the courts. It does not serve national security for the FBI to track innocent people.
Moreover, being on a watchlist is more that simply having the government label you a "terrorist" - as if that is not enough of an affront to a person's freedom. I know from experience. After I blew the whistle in the Justice Department, the government placed me on the "selectee" portion of the no-fly list.
The New York Times reported on the real consequences of being placed on the FBI's "terrorist watchlist:"
The F.B.I.’s Terrorist Screening Center shares the data with other federal agencies for screening aircraft passengers, people who are crossing the border and people who apply for visas. The data is also used by local police officers to check names during traffic stops.
These latest documents are released on the heels of the recent disturbing revelations that FBI training materials (available thanks to Wired's Danger Room blog) are warning agents that Muslim-Americans are likely to be terrorist sympathizers and that, according to two Senators on the Intelligence Committee (Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO)), the Justice Department is misleading the public on how the government is interpreting the FBI's power to collect information under the recently-renewed Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.
Danger Room reported on the FBI's training materials:
The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”
At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”
Senators Wyden and Udall expressed their concerns about the FBI's spy powers in a recent letter to Attorney General Eric Holder:
. . . we have been concerned for some time that the U.S. government is relying on secret interpretations of surveillance authorities that - in our judgment - differ significantly from the public's understanding of what is permitted under U.S. law. . . . Justice Department officials have - on a number of occasions - made what we believe are misleading statements pertaining the government's interpretation of surveillance law.
These are not civil liberties sacrifices that we can blame on reactionary measures after 9/11. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act was renewed this year. The Obama administration lobbied hard for Congress to extend FBI Director Robert Mueller's term beyond the ten-year limitation over the objections of civil liberties and privacy groups, including my organization - the Government Accountability Project, who warned of abuses:
Under Director Mueller’s leadership, the FBI has frequently violated the rights of diverse law-abiding Americans, abused its investigative powers, failed to abide by its own guidelines, arbitrarily revised those guidelines to permit longstanding abuses even in the face of congressional concerns, and avoided public accountability by cloaking its actions in secrecy—all while actively (and demonstrably) misleading federal courts, Congress and the American people.
(footnotes omitted)
The FBI needs back off on investigating innocent people get back to investigating crimes.