Reply to "FBI Watch List"

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to ""FBI Watch List""

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Here's a nice, short summary of the lists, from a Washington Post article last year.

[quote]People included in the “no fly” list, the database that the Transportation Security Administration uses to screen passengers, are deemed a threat to commercial aviation or national security. This list is a subset of a larger watch list, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center’s consolidated Terrorist Watchlist. The Terrorist Watchlist also includes the Selectee list, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database and some individuals found in the National Counter Terrorism Center’s Terrorist Identities Datasmart Environment (TIDE).[/quote]

My general understanding is that a person gets on the lists when certain branches of law enforcement (eg, FBI or DHS, not just Barney Fife down at the Mayberry PD) determine there's a "reasonable suspicion" he is involved in terrorist activities.  In most cases, simply being on the watch list doesn't affect the person's freedoms, so there's no way he'd even know he's on it.  It's just a red flag attached to his name, so law enforcement can keep an eye on him and (hopefully) connect the dots if he starts taking steps toward illegal activity.  For obvious reasons, the government is somewhat vague about exactly what causes a person to get added to any of the watch lists, or what steps the government might go through before removing someone.  If bad guys know those precise steps, it becomes easier for them to avoid the watch lists.

I recall reading there's a specific & public process for getting removed from the no-fly list, because that list does directly impact a person's freedoms, and it's obviously no secret you're on the no-fly list once you've been blocked from flying.

My understanding of the current proposals on guns is that they're trying to thread the needle between blocking suspected terrorists' access to guns, versus allowing the FBI to maintain some secrecy for its watch list.  And obviously, most Republicans in Congress are just trying to water them all down as much as possible, or block them entirely, to ensure complete and total access to guns anywhere and anytime.

FWIW, IMHO, ...

1. Blocking gun access for people on the no-fly list is a no-brainer.  That list is not secret once someone gets blocked from a flight, he knows he's on it.  If someone's too dangerous to get on a plane, surely he's too dangerous to be given a gun.

2. Blocking gun access for people on one of the other watch lists is a little more complicated, because those watch lists have been kept secret and it's easier to get added to those than to the no-fly list.  But it does seem obvious that if someone's done something to warrant being included on a terrorist watch list, that person should not be given free access to guns.

3. For either the no-fly list or the watch list, there needs to be a process for allowing people to challenge the restriction on gun ownership.  It's certainly possible someone without any terrorist ties can be added to the lists through misunderstanding.  The government needs to prove a good reason to block that person from obtaining a gun.  My understanding is that the current Dem proposal allows anyone blocked from buying a gun to demand that the government take its proofs to court and convince a neutral judge that it's reasonable to block the gun sale.  That seems pretty reasonable to me.

4. The FBI has raised concerns that it wants to protect the secrecy of some of its investigations of people on the watch list.  For a small number of people under active surveillance, the FBI doesn't want them blocked from buying a gun, because that might tip them off they're being investigated.  That seems reasonable too.  But it also seems pretty easy for the FBI to simply remove that small subset of active surveillance targets from the watch list, and keep them on some sort of separate "active surveillance" list.  It's a logistical hurdle, but one that can easily be solved.

HTH[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics