Groups demand changes to terror watch list

Dozens of privacy and civil liberties advocates are demanding the Justice Department change its rules for adding people to the government’s terrorist watch list.

The current federal watch list system, which flows into other lists including the “no-fly list,” “amounts to an unchecked exercise of power over innocent citizens and non-citizens alike,” the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumer Federation of American, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and more than 60 other organizations wrote in a letter to the department on Wednesday. 

{mosads}“Such a system is inimical to national security,” they added. “Watchlists saturated with innocent persons divert attention from real, genuine threats and waste scarce resources.”

This summer, a secret 166-page 2013 federal guidance document for the database was leaked, showing that the definitions are broad enough to include people who are dead or have been acquitted in court of terrorism charges. The list originally included just 16 names when it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, but has since grown to tens of thousands of people.

The government requires officials to have a “reasonable suspicion” that someone is connected to terrorist activity, which does not need to be based on concrete facts.

The dozens of critics urged the Justice Department on Wednesday to ensure a “full public accounting” of the list.

Rules for adding people to the list should be “narrow and specific,” they said, and evidence ought to be “accurate and credible.”

“A bloated and unfair watchlist system does not make us more secure,” they claimed. “Rather, it stigmatizes individuals and communities, erodes our privacy, and undermines cherished constitutional rights.”