THE SECRET US GOVERNMENT DIRECTIVE TO BLACKLIST YOU AS A TERRORIST: You and your infant children are identified as terrorists by the US Government شما و فرزندان نوزاد خود را به عنوان تروریست ها توسط دولت ایالات متحده شناسایی می شوند أنت وأطفالك الرضع هي المعترف بها كإرهابيين، ووفقا حكومة الولايات المتحدة Vous et vos enfants en bas âge sont reconnus comme des terroristes, selon le gouvernement des États-Unis Sie und Ihre Kinder werden als Terroristen nach der US-Regierung erkannt Вы и ваши дети признаются в качестве террористов, в соответствии с правительством США The US Government Terrorist List Document Link: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2014/07/23/march-2013-watchlisting-guidance/ The Obama administration has SECRETLY approved a substantial expansion of the US Government Terrorist List, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner national, even a minor child, as a terrorist. The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the US Government National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the US government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no-fly list and the selectee list. The new guidelines allow the US Government to designate individuals as representatives of terror organizations, without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official, Ms Lisa Monaco, the unilateral authority to place entire “categories” of people the US government is tracking onto the terrorist lists. It broadens the authority of the US government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people and children to be watchlisted. Over the years, the Obama and Bush Administrations have fiercely resisted disclosing the criteria for placing names on the US and international terrorist databases—though the guidelines are officially labeled as unclassified. In May, Attorney General Eric Holder even invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent watchlisting guidelines from being disclosed in litigation launched by an American who was on the no-fly list. In an affidavit, Holder called them a “clear roadmap” to the government’s terrorist-tracking apparatus, adding: “The Watchlisting Guidance, although unclassified, contains national security information that, if disclosed could cause significant harm to national security.” Placement on a terrorism watchlist is a life-changing event. Your travel is monitored and in many cases restricted. If overseas, you could be stranded, costing your employment or reunion with your family. You could be extrajudicially indefinitely detained and tortured, and even killed by the US or other foreign governments. Yet the ease with which someone can be placed on US watchlists and terrorism databases contrasts markedly with the impact the placement has. A long-withheld document published on Wednesday by the Intercept detailing the guidelines for placement shows that the standards for inclusion are far lower than probable cause, and the ability for someone caught in the datasets to challenge their placement do not exist. In 2013, the government made 468,749 nominations for inclusion to the US Terrorist Screening Database, up from 227,932 nominations in 2009; none are rejected. The rise – and the low standards the Intercept documented – is explained by the US overwhelming secrecy surrounding the process: attorney general Eric Holder has called it a state secret (although the guidance document itself is unclassified), preventing meaningful outside challenges. The US Government is reading your tweets, facebook, email.... The watchlisting guidance says that first amendment protected activity alone shall not be the basis for nominating someone to the lists. The key word: alone. What you say, write and publish can and will be used against you. Particularly if you tweet it, pin it or share it. The guidelines recognize that looking at postings on social media sites is constitutionally problematic. But those posts should not automatically be discounted, the guidelines state. Instead, the agency seeking to watchlist someone should evaluate the credibility of the source, as well as the nature and specificity of the information. If theyre concerned about a tweet, in other words, theyre likely to go through a users timeline. That joke about that band blowing up could come back to haunt you. Where you go might get you placed on the list – and stranded Contained within the guidance is a potential reason why many US Muslims find themselves abruptly unable to return from trips abroad without explanation. An example given of potential behavioral indicators of terrorism is travel for no known lawful or legitimate purpose to a locus of TERRORISM ACTIVITY. Not defined: lawful, legitimate or locus. That could mean specific training camps, travel to which few would dispute the merits of watchlisting. Or it could mean entire countries where terrorists are known or suspected of operating – and where millions of Americans travel every year. What happens on the no-fly list does not stay on the no-fly list. A federal judge, writing in June, noted that the FBIs Terrorist Screening Center shares information on banned passengers with 22 foreign governments as well as ship captains, resulting in potential interference with an individuals ability to travel by means other than commercial airlines. Many people who have sued the US government over the watchlists have reported being unable to return from travel abroad. Ali Ahmed, a US citizen in San Diego, attempted in 2012 to fly to Kenya to meet his fiancee for their arranged marriage. But first he flew to Saudi Arabia to make the religiously encouraged pilgrimage to Mecca; he found himself stranded in Bahrain after he was unable to enter Kenya. Ayman Latif, a disabled US marine originally from Miami who now lives in Egypt, was prevented from flying to the US for a disability evaluation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Theres room for the family, your children, and your friends, too A precursor data set that feeds the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB or, the watchlist) is the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center. TIDE contains records of known or suspected international terrorists. It also contains information on their families and perhaps their friends. Alien spouses and children of people NCTC labels terrorists get put into TIDE. They may be inadmissible to the United States, presumed to be dangerous. TIDE also contains non-terrorist records of people who have a close relationship with KNOWN or SUSPECTED terrorists, the guidance reads. Examples listed are fathers or brothers, although the guidance does not specify a blood or marital relationship as necessary for inclusion. Those people can be American citizens or noncitizens. While those close relation[s] are not supposed to be passed on for watchlisting absent other derogatory information, their data may be retained within TIDE for unspecified analytic purposes. Just because a jury finds you innocent doesnt mean watchlists agree The guidelines explicitly state that someone acquitted or against whom charges are dismissed for a crime related to terrorism can still be watchlisted. A federal official nominating such a person for inclusion on the list just needs reasonable suspicion of a danger – something defined as more than mere guesses or hunches, based on articulable information or rational inferences from it, but far less than probable cause. A judge or jurys decision is not controlling. Watch how you walk In keeping with a general enthusiasm exhibited by law enforcement and the military for identifying someone based on their seemingly unique physical attributes, biometric information is eligible as a criteria to watchlist someone. Several of those biometric identifiers are traditional law enforcement ones, like fingerprints; others are exceptionally targeted, like DNA. Then there are others that reflect emerging or immature analytic subjects: digital images, iris scans, and gait – that is, the way you walk. Gait and other biometric identifiers do not appear sufficient to watchlist someone. But they are sufficient to nominate someone to the watchlist or TIDE, provided they rise to the minimum substantive derogatory standards – articulable reasons for suspecting someone of involvement of terrorism, a far lower standard than probable cause – unless they come accompanied with evidence that the manner of walk in question includes an individual with a defined relationship with the KNOWN or SUSPECTED terrorist. It does not appear that a particular swagger by itself can be watchlisted. Lisa Monaco is a former US attorney who holds one of the most powerful and least accountable positions in the US security apparatus: assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism. She has enormous influence over the watchlisting system. The guidelines empower Monaco, her successor or a designee to make a temporary, threat-based upgrade to categories of individuals already watchlisted. The intent appears to be the creation of a single US government official able to rapidly keep people off airlines once threat information, often fragmentary and rarely specific, emerges. It is unclear what characterizes a category. Monaco, like others holding her position, does not answer to Congress. No Senate confirms her. Anyone who tries to obtain her official communications will face a legal defense of executive privilege. It appears commensurate with the extraordinary if inconsistent secrecy surrounding watchlisting – attorney general Eric Holder said the procedures were a state secret even as the guidelines outlining them are not classified – that she and not a Senate-confirmable appointee makes the upgrading decision. You can be turned into an informant (or punished if you refuse) Keeping track of suspected terrorists may not be the only purpose the watchlisting system serves. Recent lawsuits allege that the FBI uses it to blackmail people and turn them into informants and into snitches. A 30-year-old Afghan American, Naveed Shinwari, found that after FBI agents questioned him about his 2012 travel to Afghanistan – he was getting married – he couldnt obtain a boarding pass he needed for an out-of-state job interview. Soon he found himself interrogated by other FBI agents, who wanted to know if he knew anyone threatening his community in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s where it was mentioned to me: you help us, we help you. We know you don’t have a job; we’ll give you money, Shinwari, who is suing over the apparent quid pro quo, said in April. Similarly, in Oregon, a man named Yonas Fikre is suing the US government for allegedly attempting to parlay his no-fly list placement into getting him to infiltrate a prominent Portland mosque. After Fikre declined, he claims, he traveled to the United Arab Emirates, where he was detained, beaten on the soles of his feet and placed in stress positions – all, he says, while his torturers asked him questions about the Portland mosque that were suspiciously similar to those the FBI asked. The watchlists provide law enforcement with an extra-judicial tool to impose consequences on Muslims who choose to exercise their rights instead of becoming informants. So much for that job Being unable to travel is in some ways more invasive than other forms of surveillance. Unless your friends spend their time digging through court records, they will be unlikely to find out that, say, your assets were frozen, and you suddenly cant pay for your food in the supermarket. Traveling is different. Being unable to travel on short notice is what Abbas calls a publicly accessible fact – that is, something your friends, family and co-workers will learn about in time. His client Gulet Mohammed is an information-technology professional in northern Virginia. Not allowing him to be able to cover great distances in a short amount of time, that has a dramatic impact on what his employment prospects are, Abbas said. Earl Knaeble IV, an army veteran from California, alleges in a lawsuit that he lost a job offered to him after he was unable to return to the US for a pre-employment medical exam after he got married in Colombia. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to drive home. You cant get off There is no procedure to challenge and reverse your status on the US terrorist watchlist or TIDE. Inclusion on any is not typically disclosed – making legal remedies difficult – nor does the US government provide any process for removal. Procedures identified within the guidance are exclusively internal US government processes. The only way to get off the federal watchlist is through the beneficence of a federal agent, routinely coupled with some form of cooperation with the FBI, Abbas said.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 10:36:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015