A watchlist for auto buyers?

Uh, have we heard about that before? I must start paying attention more.

Maybe some conservative group needs to adopt this as a takings issue.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Real conservatives don't get on those kinds of lists.

It's like being arrested. It wouldn't have happened unless you had done something wrong.

they're probably here to stay and are quite likely fairly effective. (Though I wouldn't mind hearing some evidence on that score.)

Nope, not effective. I'm on a watchlist, along with everyone who shares my name. Sorry guys! For that reason, the watchers don't take it seriously and just go through the motions. It's like a 27B-6.

why would you think they are effective without seeing any evidence?

"...are quite likely fairly effective."

True, if by "fairly effective" you mean "doing a good job of perpetuating the fear that a couple dozen psychos unleashed on this country over six years ago." Whatever happened to "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave"? The way this country's behaved post-9/11, bin Laden must think he hit the trifecta.

I understand the purpose of all these watchlists, and even though I don't like them much I get the fact that they're probably here to stay and are quite likely fairly effective. (Though I wouldn't mind hearing some evidence on that score.) —Kevin Drum

Are you out of your mind? These idiotic watch lists, along with unregulated wire tapping and Internet surveillance are the foundation of a police state.

"You all goin' fishin' again today?"

Now that it's clear that credit markets and banking and the like need regulation, and benefit from government involvement, maybe more of the folks at the Cato Institute could focus on helping get rid of this stuff. It would be a vastly more effective use of their time.

And didn't I hear that Robert Johnson is on the watchlist. Not just one Robert Johnson; all the Robert Johnsons. Or was this fixed or do the screeners ignore it (or do I have the name wrong)?

Kevin,

Once again, you're conceding the other side's point far too quickly. Name check systems, as such, can't be fixed because they snare everyone with a common named without imposing any real obligations (or bestowing enough identifying information) on the person using the list. I suspect that most false positives don't share the some age, eye color height, etc, with their false-positive matches - information that could be used to exclude most of the people who are currently being harassed.

Effective? Like a criminal, knowing that his or her name may be on a list, isn't going to use a false name and identification?

The watch list is probably a multi-million dollar cash cow for the involved parties. Don't want to mess up a good thing by questioning it, you know.

This is possibly the most maddening aspect of our current watchlist frenzy. I understand the purpose of all these watchlists, and even though I don't like them much I get the fact that they're probably here to stay and are quite likely fairly effective.

K-Drum:
You know this how? I thought after 7+ years of Boosh that you'd damn well know that Bush and his minions aren't competent at anything they do. Why do you think this is any different?

Evidence first, then conclusions, Kevin.

"Just trust us" doesn't count as evidence. Not from this administration, not anymore.

Kevin, I know you've got a quota of posts to file, but you might do a little research, and find stuff like the following:

"In September 2007, the Inspector General of the Justice Department reported that the Terrorist Screening Center (the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States) had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 - and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month.1 (See also this new March 2008 report.2 )

"At that rate, our list will have a million names on it by July. If there were really that many terrorists running around, we'd all be dead.

"Terrorist watch lists must be tightly focused on true terrorists who pose a genuine threat. Bloated lists are bad because they ensnare many innocent travelers as suspected terrorists, and
because they waste screeners' time and divert their energies from looking for true terrorists.
Small, focused watch lists are better for civil liberties and for security.

"The uncontroversial contention that Osama Bin Laden and a handful of other known terrorists should not be allowed on an aircraft is being used to create a monster that goes far beyond what ordinary Americans think of when they think about a 'terrorist watch list.'

"This is not just a problem of numbers. The numbers are merely a symptom. What's needed is fairness. If the government is going to rely on these kinds of lists, they need checks and balances to ensure that innocent people are protected. (See ACLU Backgrounder on Watch Lists for more)

"Unlikely Suspects

"Many innocent individuals have already been caught up by our government's bloated watch lists. Here is a sampling:

"Robert Johnson - 60 Minutes interviewed 12 men named Robert Johnson, all of whom reported being pulled aside and interrogated, sometimes for hours, nearly every time they go to the airport."

Via the ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/watchlistcounter.html

I mean, I know the ACLU is an un-American organization, but sometimes they know what they're talking about. And, you know, you could look it up.

Red scare! Red scare! Given my (common)name, I assume that I'm on some of these useless lists. What I really can't understand is why we've got experian and equifax handling these things. It seems to me we've taken a bad idea and made it even worse. "I'm sorry Mr. Smith, you can't buy this washing machine because although you have perfect credit, you may be a 'terrorist'."

Mr. Drum, it's not crazy at all. It's authoritarian fascism. That's what these freaks Cheney and Bush are, Jesus, it's who they are, it's what they want and of course it's how they behave.

It can get so irritating, sir, after seven long radical years how come people refuse to see these authoritarian fascists for what they are? They don't give a damn about any of our rights!!!!

I would think one big problem is that the lists are not "watch" lists--as in watch these people--but a "stop" list--as in do not do business with these people. Do no let them buy cars, fly on planes, etc. I think most people would be OK (-ish) with a be careful list, but not a secret list of names that shall have no life.

If they have a name and a description of a suspected terrorist, why the fuck don't they arrest that person and either prove the case against them or release them and remove them from the list. Instead we get this idiotic runaround where the person in question and anyone who might possibly be confused with them is kept from boarding planes, getting credit and spending money. If you are confident enough in the ident to stop someone from flying, ARREST THEM. IF you are not confident enough to arrest them, LET THEM GO ABOUT THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. Is this really that hard? Last I heard we were a country of laws, not innuendo and harassment.

Yeah, me, too, I wanted to chime in but the first person in this thread already hit the nail on the head: A watch list for CAR BUYERS?

So EVERYONE in this country must ALWAYS get a background check for EVERYTHING? Completely apart from the certainty of inaccurate information being trumpeted by the credit reporting companies and other database-selling privacy-invading vultures, you have to get checked to: get a job? get medical care? get a car? Etc., etc., etc.?

What exactly is the crazy-eyed terrorist supposed to do, turn his car into a car bomb? Yes, that's possible of course. But I don't think that's the worry here. The point is just that you have some stupid company with stupid employees who can only see things in the dumbest possible terms. Someone told them to run a check on buyers and if it doesn't come up completely clean, o-o-o-h, that's very worrying.

How often do you move, sir? Do you have references who can attest to your moral character? Are you planning on leaving the area at any time in the next while? Do you have any moles or other personal disfigurements we should know about?

It is not the agencies' job to take names off the lists. It is their job to put names on the lists and carefully check these suspects at all checkpoints.

I remember that 60 minutes story last year on this no-fly list business. They actually sat down with the head of the FTC or whatever agency is in charge of the "list" and asked why, for example, Mohammed Atta was still on it. Since the list is "classified" , but the reporter had it in his hand, she refused to comment on who was or wasn't on it. It was hilarious. Unless of course, you're one of the poor slobs whose name is on it.

One more thing: for terrorists who are buying cars - CraigsList sellers are not (yet) required to check the WatchList.

"If you are confident enough in the ident to stop someone from flying, ARREST THEM. IF you are not confident enough to arrest them, LET THEM GO ABOUT THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. Is this really that hard? Last I heard we were a country of laws, not innuendo and harassment."

Interesting thought. That's basically Fourth Amendment language -- probable cause, and all that stuff the Framers though was important, but that seems to be passe these days. The ACLU link above has further links about its litigation against this junk, which might indicate the status of its challenges to mindless inclusion on the watchlist.

And yes. For car buyers????? C'mon.

I wouldn't be surprised if one metric by which a list is scored is the number of suspects that have been identified. So adding anyone to the list is a mark in your favor. While there's no similar benefit for removing anyone from the list, so they don't bother doing it.

Considering that the 9/11 attacks were perpetuated by foreigners, Saudi nationals for the most part, all here illegally (by overstaying their visas), perhaps tightening immigration controls (restricting who comes here and monitoring of those that are here) is the most effective homeland security measure and the one least burdensome to US citizens. Yes it burdens foreign nationals, but both politically and morally, theydon't get a vote. In the list of hyphenated Americans, there's no such thing as an illegal alien-American.

Tightly focusing on outsiders coming in instead of subjecting everyone here (including citizens) to watch lists and other security measures reminds me of Lincoln's argument against direct property taxes in favor of raising revenue by an import tariff:

The tariff is the cheaper system, because the duties, being collected in large parcels at a few commercial points, will require comparatively few officers in their collection; while by the direct-tax system the land must be literally covered with assessors and collectors, going forth like awarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and other green thing...

By the direct-tax system none can escape. However strictly the citizen may exclude from his premises all foreign luxuries,--fine cloths, fine silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond rings, -- still, for the possession of his house, his barn, and his homespun, he is to be perpetually haunted and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views we leave it to be determined whether we or our opponents are the more truly democratic on the subject.
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Writings-of-Abraham-Lincoln-v15.html

When those with anti-war views start winding up on watchlists, maybe your view point will change. Power to fuck with people whom you don't like is too tempting for anyone to have at their disposal.

Barring any oversight system, perhaps the least we can ask for is that the watchlist results show a person's age so we won't have TSA agents frisking any more five year olds.

The US has no need for its military and no need to keep lists of its citizens as threats to national security. The US is becoming the thing it fears most, as Jung would predict, a totalitarian society.

"There isn't a procedure to help consumers clear their names."

What about people?

Naomi Wolf's "The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot" is sitting on my desk, still, largely because I can't figure out what to make of it. It's a bad book in many ways (and beneath her, in all those ways).

And I really don't think we're moving toward fascism.

But car dealers? Watch lists for car dealers? The power is in the caprice (I know there's a pun there, somewhere; sorry). We can't sacrifice our fundamental freedoms and our way of life so as to feel safe. We're not going to be safe.

Whether or not watch lists "work" clearly there has to be a way for individuals to unwind this string. It has to be transparent and accessible, and it has to work.

Do we all post here under pseudonyms because we fear our names will be harvested in some future purge?

Orwell's "1984" seems more prescient (did I spell that correctly?) every day.

When is someone going to challenge the legality of the watchlist through the legal system (or are people already doing so?).

Anybody have info on this?

Once again, you're conceding the other side's point far too quickly. Name check systems, as such, can't be fixed because they snare everyone with a common named without imposing any real obligations (or bestowing enough identifying information) on the person using the list.

They're also a nightmare when using English transliterations of Arabic or other foreign names from languages which do not use the Latin alphabet. For example, the extremely common Arabic name "Ahmed" can also be spelled, variously, Ahmad, Achmed, Achmad, etc., while another common name, "Hussein", can become Hassan, Hussan, Hassain, Hussain, Hossein, etc. Same for Chinese, where for example "Xie" and "Hsieh" (pronounced "Shea" like Shea Stadium) are the same name.

Which of these names ends up on the watchlist? All of them? That would throw up a vast number of false positives, so many as to make it useless. On the other hand, if you restrict it to one spelling, then you're not accounting for the alternatives. Ultimately, these watchlists are unworkable.

A watchlist for buying large quantities of (dangerous) chemicals, sure. To keep _suspected_ drug dealers from buying a car? WTF? Now we have a government sponsored blacklist. 4th amendment anybody?

once again, Kevin reveals his ignorance and gets "beaten like a Drum" by his own readers. Too amusing!

Maybe some conservative group needs to adopt this as a takings issue.

I was thinking due process myself, but conservatives definitely aren't interested in that.

Can't we just cut to the chase and all have identifying numbers tattooed on our inner forearm?

Would those who approve of "watch" lists agree to a number tattooed on their forearms?

That way, fliers could be easily sorted: some go to the left and some, well...some go to the right...

hancock

Add me to the list of people bummed that Kevin Drum assumes that this administration's watch lists are effective before he sees evidence proving as much.

Is there a *progressive* blog around here someplace that I could read?

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

I.I"Robert Johnson - 60 Minutes interviewed 12 men named Robert Johnson, all of whom reported being pulled aside and interrogated, sometimes for hours, nearly every time they go to the airport."

Well, one of them must have written Cross Road Blues, right?

People often think of the Germans as assholes because of WWII, but few know that the Nazis had to lock up a lot of people who opposed them in order to gain power. The Prussian police force that became the Gestapo was actually purged of 2/3 of its personnel- they were sent to concentration camps- and replaced with reliable Nazis about the time Hitler came to power. Anyway, to do all these different kinds of purges, the Nazis had saved up people's names on lists for a long time.

Keeping lists like that probably isn't good for freedom. Who's keeping them? What other kinds of lists are they keeping? Are all these people in the FBI a bunch of Jesus freaks? Why can't we have any normal people work in law enforcement, etc.?

Before the Nazis formally came to power, they built up a private organization of weekend-warrior, angry-white-male types called the SA (who everyone on the Internet always call "the Brownshirts"). This very large, militia-like organization pushed people around, which allowed them to gain power, which allowed them to lock people up literally like a day or two after gaining power. There were purges all over the place, and the first concentration camps had thousands of political prisoners in them long before they started systematicaly imprisoning the Jews.

The terrorism watchlist now contains over 900,000 names. ( See http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/34298prs20080227.html )

If there were almost a million terrorists in this country, I doubt that we'd have many car dealerships to worry about... or Experian databases for that matter...

Insanity.

Nobody can *ever* get removed because it's impossible to prove they're NOT the one the watchers are supposed to be worried about. Besides, they might not be the one right now, but who knows about the future?

Proving a negative, and all that. Especially when you can't know who you're not supposed to be. Kafka, thy name is bush.

We're gonna be East Germany any moment now.

The mechanics of keeping a clean database like this is pretty hard. I'm several years retired now and may not be up to date, but back when the way something like this would have been done is:
*Data is probably added at many different locations. Where the source documents come from I couldn't guess.
*Data needs to be consolidated somewhere so that it can be searched efficiently by all those Toyota dealers and other clients. Indexes need to be built and maintained and so on.
*I'd guess that data would be entered at many different locations and harvested by the mother system every hour or so. Maybe more often if the system can bear the traffic.
*Data may exist on some sort of archival media at the point where it was entered. That is when the data is entered it is also mirrored to another db so that there is a backup copy immediately.
*When data is consolidated to a larger database it' s also mirrored.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the data exists in several places and it's hard to track down all those copies to correct or remove them. There's ways to do it of course, but since there's so many errors in this I'd guess that quality control is not the best.

We used to have a saying that “it ain't data unless you know the rules governing how it was collected and the context within which it was collected.�

Americans crave abuse. How else could we have 2 terms of Bush followed by a McCain candidacy running neck and neck with the dem candidates? OMG.

These lists only purpose is to intimidate citizens, especially citizens who do not support the current political regime and its policies.

On this day when some patriots are planning to protest the US occupation and mass murder in Iraq, law enforcement pigs are planning on taking names and adding them to this list to fuck with American citizens. Protesters have a dilemmma if they should be asked their name by a law enforcement oinker. Should they give their name and find it on a list? Should they decline to give their name and risk detainment? Should they lie and risk prosecution for lying to a law enforcement, torturing goon?

These lists only purpose is to stifle dissent. These lists should be destroyed and their keepers exposed to the public as Nazis.

I think a little inconvenience is a small price to pay to be completely safe from everything. In fact, the watchlists probably don't go far enough. They should have everyone's name on them. All 6.6 billion of us. Except mine of course. Because you just never know.

Sounds like these lists are about as effective as if they just added people to the list based on their astrological sign.

So let's suppose that the guy who walked into the car dealership really is the guy that the government suspects is a drug dealer. Let's further assume that the man has never been convicted of drug dealing, or of any other charge. How, then, can the government direct a car dealership not to sell him a car? Doesn't this deprive a citizen of "life, liberty, or property" without due process of law?

Brojo-- don't know if your comment was meant to be sarcastic or ironical or not, but-- If there was really a rebellion or something going on in this country, there might be a reason to keep lists. But there's not. There's just a bunch of normal people, and there used to be a few Al Qaeda guys running around-- mostly overseas-- and now most of them are dead, and probably almost all of the living ones are locked up or are overseas. There really isn't a reason for 900,000-name lists. Really.

We need a rebellion to prevent lists like these from being utilized by a government no longer for, by and of the people. These lists were only created to harass patriotic dissenters. The people who make and control the lists are totalitarians who want to make America a concentration camp.

The Democratic majority Congress is not protecting Americans from these lists. The Democratic presidential candidates will express the same opinion as Mr. Drum that these lists are somehow effective at protecting national security. They are not and were not intended for such a purpose. These lists were created with the purpose of harassing and intimidating American citizens in order for the government to continue its imperial wars without interference from a discontented public.

Re: the Robert Johnsons

Well, one of them must have written Cross Road Blues, right?
Posted by: me2i81

Thanks, me2i81. I wanted to make that joke, but though I've often listened to his stuff on the radio, I don't know the titles.

So, what if that guy WAS a terrorist, layin low, underground, biding his time.

He gets tipped off by a car dealer?

The technical issues are all well and good, frank, but it's the logic behind what the list does that makes it impossible for list-keepers to remove anyone from it.

"Robert Johnson" is on it because someone with a name sort of like that was once tabbed for something that might have seemed suspicious to somebody or some algorithm. Most likely, whatever seemed suspicious wasn't actually witnessed in person. No one can identify by sight a specific Robert Johnson. All anyone knows is that "suspicious" activity (or something) was once possibly connected to someone whose name Soundexed out like "Robert Johnson."

Because nobody saw a particular person do a particular thing, no one will ever know *which* Robert Johnson might have been connected somewhere, at some time, with something that might have seemed suspicious within the parameters of some automated computer surveillance operation.

The point of such lists, even if done in good faith, is not to pinpoint. It is to cast a wide net, to get leads, in order to eventually identify some specific person somewhere, sometime. The question they start with is "There are potential bad actors among the multitudes out there; how do we find them?" The identifier "Robert Johnson" somehow came up.

Somewhere in the universe of Robert Johnsons may be one (or more) who may be up to no good. They'll know which one(s) it is when he/they actually show up in person and get investigated. But he/they can never be "cleared," because even if it doesn't look like it at the moment, he/they might *be* the one in the future. He/they might just be playing possum *this* time. Sleepers, you know.

So everybody whose name turns up on the list in some variation will always be stopped and checked all the time.

"Good faith" is the ringer term. It gets this ridiculous just if you assume good faith. As lots of people here have said, there is no good faith with this crowd.

Eventually, everybody will be on it. And nobody will ever be crossed off it.

Considering that the 9/11 attacks were perpetuated by foreigners, Saudi nationals for the most part, all here illegally (by overstaying their visas), perhaps tightening immigration controls (restricting who comes here and monitoring of those that are here) is the most effective homeland security measure and the one least burdensome to US citizens. Posted by: beowulf

Hear! Hear!

Our immigration standards are abysmal, and they are the primary reason the U.S. population has grown so dramatically over the last 30 years or so.

So far as I know, the computer systems for the various agencies now under the DHS, as well as those of the FBI and CIA are not connected in such a way that allows the timely sharing of important information. The State Department section that handles visas and U.S. Border Patrol have both been grossly understaffed for a long time as well.

Somewhat off topic, but an interesting aside was Bill Gates lobbying in Washington recently for liberalized immigration standards strictly because Microsoft (and most of the rest of the industry) wants to be able to hire thousands of Indian and Chinese geeks on H1 visas because they work a lot cheaper than American born and educated geeks, who are in plentiful supply. Companies hiring foreign programmers and the like save about 1/3 on salaries and benefits. It's pretty hard to argue that this really helps the economy overall.

Have you ever seen the movie "Brazil"? It begins with a moth falling into a printer, which causes an error that results in the kidnapping, torture and death of an innocent civilian. Look at the idiocy inherit in the system. It's far too easy to create a false positive for terrorism suspects, and that it can be done is a sort of terrorism itself, ruining credit and small lives in a slow torture.

Did you ever see the movie Brazil? It was prophetic of the US situation now.

It's easy to get put on a watchlist in error, and impossible (as pointed out above) to get off the list.

Brujo said "We need a rebellion to prevent lists like these from being utilized by a government no longer for, by and of the people. These lists were only created to harass patriotic dissenters. The people who make and control the lists are totalitarians who want to make America a concentration camp."

If there really were a rebellion, wouldn't those lists, along with the wiretapping privileges claimed by Bush, come in handy for squashing it?

Another thing that has grown out of this watch list nonsense is that foreign artists, musicians and writers more frequently encounter problems. Recently, Amy Winehouse was denied a visa so that she could perform at the Grammys. Last year, Lily Allen had problems getting a visa as well. Now a British author has been denied a visa.

March 20, 2008
British Memoirist Is Denied U.S. Entry
By MOTOKO RICH

Sebastian Horsley, a British author who has written an eyebrow-raising memoir detailing a life of rampant drug use and voluminous encounters with prostitutes, was turned back at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday as he tried to enter the United States for a book party and New York news media tour.

Mr. Horsley, whose memoir, “Dandy in the Underworld,� was published last week in paperback by Harper Perennial, a unit of HarperCollins, said he was detained by United States customs authorities for eight hours and questioned about his former drug addiction, use of prostitutes and activity as a male escort.

“I’m absolutely shattered and upset and gutted about not being able to come to America,� Mr. Horsley said in a telephone interview from London, where he had returned on Wednesday. “I was very much looking forward to meeting everybody.�

Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for the New York office of United States Customs and Border Protection, said she could not comment on specific cases. But in an e-mail message, she said that under a waiver program that allows British citizens to enter the United States without a visa, “travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.�

In “Dandy of the Underworld� Mr. Horsley, who is notorious in Britain, writes of being raised by alcoholic, sexually promiscuous parents and bouncing through several schools. He details a debauched life of cocaine, heroin, opium and amphetamine use, writing that he spent more than £100,000 (nearly $200,000) on crack cocaine and £100,000 to consort with more than 1,000 prostitutes. He also chronicles his trip to the Philippines to be hung from a cross, an event that was recorded by a photographer and videographer and formed part of an art exhibition that was extensively covered by the news media in his home country.

Carrie Kania, publisher of Harper Perennial, said Mr. Horsley’s party, which was scheduled for Wednesday in Manhattan, would go on without him. “I believe this book is very important,� Ms. Kania said. “It certainly moved me, and we’re going to continue to back it 100 percent.�

British public records are not available in the United States, and it was not possible to verify independently many of the details in Mr. Horsley’s memoir.

In interviews, though, he has been repeatedly coy about what is real and what is contrived. “It’s better to be quotable than honest,� he told Time Out London in February. In an interview with The Independent last September, he said: “I don’t speak, I quote. I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet.�

In his interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Horsley insisted the memoir was true. “I’m a dandy, so I like to play with words,� he said. “I am real, but in an artificial way, because I like to play with language. But my story is completely true.�

Ms. Kania said that the book, published in Britain in September by an imprint of Hodder Headline, had been through a “lengthy legal review� by the British publisher. But Harper did not independently fact-check it.

Mr. Horsley said he was surprised he was deported, since he had previously traveled to the United States six times, twice to visit relatives in Boston and four times to New York.

“God bless America, land of the free, but sadly not the land of the depraved,� he said. He referred to the recent resignation of Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, in the wake of revelations that he had frequented prostitutes. “I’m not a politician, I’m an artist,� Mr. Horsley said. “Depravity is part of the job description.�

He added that he regarded his memoir as “a very moral book in the same way that Bret Easton Ellis’s ‘American Psycho’ was a moral book.� He added, “I’m not a bad person.�

Jack Begg contributed reporting.

Speaking of Experian and Equifax, one of them, I forget which, has absolutely no way to contact them via telephone to get a real person.

Umm, isn't a watchlist for people purchasing cars a bit... I dunno, invasive? The auto dealer is a private citizen, not a public official, and not qualified to deal with it, and if I were the dealer I'd seriously consider skipping the list at all, lest customers freak out and sue me.

wouldn't those lists...come in handy for squashing it [rebellion]?

The lists are already being used to squash any and all dissent. Rebellion against the kind of authority W. Bush, his Republicans and Democratic enablers are using against the polity is well deserved. They fear constitutional rights will prevent them from enriching their corporate benefactors. W. Bush, Republicans and their Democratic enablers hope these lists and the warrantless domestic wire taps will keep Americans from protesting the war today and tomorrow's war.

Considering that the 9/11 attacks were perpetuated by foreigners, Saudi nationals for the most part, all here illegally (by overstaying their visas), perhaps tightening immigration controls (restricting who comes here and monitoring of those that are here) is the most effective homeland security measure

You are quite correct. This is America, we're perfectly capable of producing our own terrorists without unfair foriegn competition. I feel so bad for poor Timothy McVeigh, who only got to hold the record for a few years before those darn Arabs cheated by overstaying their visas in order to beat him out for worst terrorist act on US soil. Someone like Padilla could have been a contender, if it weren't for unfair competition from illegal aliens.

Car dealers and credit bureaus shouldn't be expected to check suspects for tattos. In fact, car dealers shouldn't be in the finance business at all.

The independent bank loan was a valuable check against dealer overpricing, since the lender's interest is to avoid financing a vastly overpriced car.

When the lender and the seller are one and the same, or in cahoots with each other, that's a conflict of interest.

Dealers have no business running credit checks, period.

I am quite surprised that no one has called this thing out for what it is: un-American. Due process, the right to petition the government for grievances are fundamental constitutional rights, but apparently people are willing, indeed eager, to sacrifice them for a false sense of security.

Watchlist? Isn't that one of the reasons the old Soviet Union was destroyed?

And since the watchlist can trump any liberty a citizen is suppose to have doesn't that mean the U.S. is no longer a country about freedom?

Seems to me the best way to destroy the watchlist is for a hacker to place all government people names on the list, like Senators and Congressmen; News Media would be good too, (all of the people who work at Foxnews would be fun, CNN too.)

nothing like totally missing the point, Kev.

gg

I understand the purpose of all these watchlists, and even though I don't like them much I get the fact that they're probably here to stay and are quite likely fairly effective. (Though I wouldn't mind hearing some evidence on that score.)

Fairly effective at what? The only utility they seem to have is getting Americans used to a culture of totalitarian government control where the basic liberties of travel, participation in basic and necessary economic interchanges, and every aspect of life are subject to arbitrary deprivation, based on absolutely no evidence, with no recourse, at the whim of unaccountable authorities.

There is no evidence that they do anything to reduce the incidence of terrorism in the United States -- the rate after 9/11 is, of course, negligible, so was the rate before 9/11.

But why the insane refusal to set up a system that allows innocent people to get off our various and sundry watchlists?

Because (aside from the above) the purpose of the list is to present the appearance of doing something about terrorism. A challenge and review process would necessarily provide insight into how people got onto the list in the first place, which
would reveal even more clearly what has been hinted at by the various bits of the system that have become visible despite the secrecy: that the lists have almost no rational bearing on preventing terrorism.

This is crazy.

No, its perfectly rational once you consider what its likely actual purpose is rather than making unjustified assumption that the people designing and imposing this policy believe in the same things you do, but are just somehow incompetent or irrational in their approach to acheiving them.

And didn't I hear that Robert Johnson is on the watchlist. Not just one Robert Johnson; all the Robert Johnsons.

Probably because he's been hanging around with those heavily bearded fugitives from justice, the Soggy Bottom Boys.

poor Timothy McVeigh

Do not worry. There are American Iraqi war veterans in our midst right now who will reclaim the title of worst domestic terrorist soon enough.