{"id":185888,"date":"2014-07-23T19:35:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T00:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/23\/live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-51\/"},"modified":"2014-07-23T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T00:35:00","slug":"live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/23\/live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-51\/","title":{"rendered":"Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his latest<\/strike>, someone, almost certainly not Edward Snowden, leaked him<\/strike> Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist<\/a>,” and finds a document that can be shortened to, “Because I said so.”<\/p>\n

It’s truly horrifying:<\/p>\n

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither \u201cconcrete facts\u201d nor \u201cirrefutable evidence\u201d to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept.<\/span>

<\/span> The \u201cMarch 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,\u201d a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government\u2019s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place \u201centire categories\u201d of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to \u201cnominate\u201d people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as \u201cfragmentary information.\u201d It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.<\/span>

<\/span> Over the years, the Obama and Bush Administrations have fiercely resisted disclosing the criteria for placing names on the databases\u2014though 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 \u201cclear roadmap\u201d to the government\u2019s terrorist-tracking apparatus, adding: \u201cThe Watchlisting Guidance, although unclassified, contains national security information that, if disclosed \u2026 could cause significant harm to national security.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

National security, the last refuge of scoundrels.<\/p>\n

The rulebook, which The Intercept is publishing in full, was developed behind closed doors by representatives of the nation\u2019s intelligence, military, and law-enforcement establishment, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Emblazoned with the crests of 19 agencies, it offers the most complete and revealing look into the secret history of the government\u2019s terror list policies to date. It reveals a confounding and convoluted system filled with exceptions to its own rules, and it relies on the elastic concept of \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d as a standard for determining whether someone is a possible threat. Because the government tracks \u201csuspected terrorists\u201d as well as \u201cknown terrorists,\u201d individuals can be watchlisted if they are suspected of being a suspected terrorist, or if they are suspected of associating with people who are suspected of terrorism activity.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cInstead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future,\u201d says Hina Shamsi, the head of the ACLU\u2019s National Security Project. \u201cOn that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven\u2019t carried out.\u201d Shamsi, who reviewed the document, added, \u201cThese criteria should never have been kept secret.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> The document\u2019s definition of \u201cterrorist\u201d activity includes actions that fall far short of bombing or hijacking. In addition to expected crimes, such as assassination or hostage-taking, the guidelines also define destruction of government property and damaging computers used by financial institutions as activities meriting placement on a list. They also define as terrorism any act that is \u201cdangerous\u201d to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation.<\/span>

<\/span> This combination\u2014a broad definition of what constitutes terrorism and a low threshold for designating someone a terrorist\u2014opens the way to ensnaring innocent people in secret government dragnets. It can also be counterproductive. When resources are devoted to tracking people who are not genuine risks to national security, the actual threats get fewer resources\u2014and might go unnoticed.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cIf reasonable suspicion is the only standard you need to label somebody, then it\u2019s a slippery slope we\u2019re sliding down here, because then you can label anybody anything,\u201d says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent with experience running high-profile terrorism investigations. \u201cBecause you appear on a telephone list of somebody doesn\u2019t make you a terrorist. That\u2019s the kind of information that gets put in there.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is the kicker:<\/p>\n

The nomination system appears to lack meaningful checks and balances. Although government officials have repeatedly said there is a rigorous process for making sure no one is unfairly placed in the databases, the guidelines acknowledge that all nominations of \u201cknown terrorists\u201d are considered justified unless the National Counterterrorism Center has evidence to the contrary. In a recent court filing, the government disclosed that there were 468,749 KST nominations in 2013, of which only 4,915 were rejected\u2013a rate of about one percent. The rulebook appears to invert the legal principle of due process, defining nominations as \u201cpresumptively valid.\u201d<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Half a million people put on the list every year, and they have no obligation to prove you guilty.<\/p>\n

The term Kafkaesque comes to mind.<\/p>\n

The Intercept has published the whole document on their site, and I have embedded it after the break.<\/p>\n

Note correction.  I did not loook at the byline.  It was Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux, not Glenn Greenwald who broke this story.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

2013 Watchlist Guidance<\/a><\/div>\n