The Political Inquirer

Is your name on the list?  920,000 is the number of names projected to be on the government’s terrorist watch list. In May 2007, the inspector general reported the number at 700,000 and it had been growing by an average of about 20,000 names per month, the ACLU reported. From those figures, the list should hit 920,000 this March.

The list includes aliases, so not every name indicates an individual person. However, with the list in this turgid state, mistakes seem more an more likely. The situation hearkens back to the communists hunts of the postwar era. Citizens who find their name on the list will have to defend themselves as innocent, instead of the other way around. That may not be how the list is intended to work, but in practice it’s inevitable.

Imagine a simple scenario: you’re on your way through the airport and get stopped by security. You’re running a little late - your plane leaves in thirty minutes - but your name matches a name on the list. You get agitated because you’re in a hurry and you argue with the airport staff. Are you going to make your flight? Unlikely. In fact, you may find yourself in questioning. And even if you end up boarding a later flight, how do you prevent such disturbances from happening in the future?

In addition, other sorts of mistakes can occur. It seems that names on being put on the list just to cover the government’s butt. That way, if an unlikely suspect does commit a terrorist attack, they can say “well, at least his name was on the list.”

Disturbingly, its not even clear how certain names get on the list. Does traveling abroad raise my chances of getting listed? What if I go to countries with less than stellar security: Thailand, Laos, or Tanzania? The names of infants and dead people, including the 9/11 hijackers, have purportedly turned up on the list. Is such a list really making America safer?

Trading liberty for security is never a good idea. Nor is making decisions based on fear, though that’s precisely the reason these security measures are tolerated. As Shakespeare once said,

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe. And so your follies fight against yourself.