FBI Terror Watch List 'Out of Control'

Source: ABC News Blotter

A terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than half a million names.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

A portion of the FBI's unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to "the entire watch list of 509,000 names," which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force.

A spokesman for the interagency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which maintains the government's list of all suspected terrorists with links to international organizations, said they had 465,000 names covering 350,000 individuals. Many names are different versions of the same identity -- "Usama bin Laden" and "Osama bin Laden" for the al Qaeda chief, for example.

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/fbi_terror_watc.html

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on the list are not terrorists? How much of their resources are wasted on those not needed?

They are unable to winnow out the list so they can concentrate on terrorists? Geesh

Especially those with an Arab sounding last name!! :sarcasm:

A half a million suspects?? The terror watch list has become a joke. Of course this is entirely possible, given that this war has enraged Muslims and others worldwide and is creating a whole new generation of terrorists.

If someone committed a crime, go get them. But these notions of "terrorism" are becoming simply tools of the empowered, and the Right Wing, to control and criminalize thousands who have committed no crime.

This has long gone past a totalitarian Orwellian, Kakfaesque nightmare. Time to get rid of this notion of "Terrorism."

Thread bookmarked for future reference.

Democrats off the list. They wasted a lot of money back in the 70s chasing good Americans.

have!!! Hey, at least I'm in good company--Ted Kennedy was on it, too!

Your tax dollars at work!