Terrorist Watchlist Database Balloons

The government's centralized terrorist watch list passed the 900,000 name mark this month, according to the ACLU, which estimated the new total by relying on Congressional testimony from the fall that the sprawling list was growing by 20,000 names a month.

The report the ACLU relied on to create its Watch List Counter included the following chart demonstrating the clear growth trajectory of the nation's centralized watch lists over the last several years.

The Terrorist Screening Center runs the list, accepting nominations of new names from a large range of government agencies.

Agencies use the watch list to check persons seeking visas, traveler entering or leaving the country, domestic airline passengers and persons stopped by state, local or federal law enforcement.

Most of the positive matches on the list came from police routinely checking persons, such as speeding motorists, according to the Government Accountability Office's report (.pdf). The number of individuals on the list is likely significantly less than 900,000, since the name count includes aliases.

Persons on the list are coded with varying suspected threat levels, so simply being on the watch list doesn't mean one will be arrested when say a person on the list pulled over for speeding. In fact, being on list isn't even enough to ensure that a person is denied a visa or entry into the country, according to the report.

The Transportation Security Agency exports two subsets of the list -- the no-fly and selectee lists -- which airlines use to decide who can get a boarding pass and who has to get hand-searched. The TSA continues to work on a much-delayed project now known as Secure Flight that would have the TSA perform the name checks in advance of a domestic flight, in an effort to reduce the number of falsely flagged travelers. Those affected over the last 7 years include many David Nelsons, a high-ranking nun, and federal employees with security clearances.

If the ACLU's math is correct, the list should pass the million name mark sometime in early July.

UPDATE: Terrorist Screening Center spokesman Chad Kolton dropped a long response in the comments, saying that the list is useful, contains actually more like 300,000 people due to aliases and that only some 5 percent -- approximately 15,000, are U.S. persons.

The Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) is now the world’s most comprehensive and, importantly, widely-shared list of known and suspected terrorists. The names it includes are there because of credible information developed by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, or those of our foreign partners. While the vast majority of people in it likely will never attempt to enter the United States, the TSDB gives our allies, consular officers, airlines, and border screening agencies the ability to make an informed decision about granting admission to the U.S.

[...] We work hard to ensure that the list remains effective even as it grows. The government does its best to populate the TSDB with the identities of only those who are known or appropriately suspected of being involved in terrorism. In addition, TSC employees constantly review the database to remove the identities of those who have been cleared of any suspicion of engaging in terrorist activity. During fiscal year 2007 alone, TSC employees removed over 100,000 records from the database of individuals that had been cleared of having any nexus to terrorism. [...]

This list helps protect Americans. We're always at work to do it in the most effective, least intrusive way we can, adhering to our important Constitutional principles in the process.

THREAT LEVEL confirmed that this was Kolton, and sent some further questions about the list and its operations to him. Due to some very reasonable extenuating circumstances, Kolton can't immediately answer, but THREAT LEVEL will bring you more in 10 days or so.

See Also:


700,000 Name Terror Watch List Still Riddled With False Information
Reporter Visits Terror Watch List Center, Prevented from Seeing The Big Board
Vulnerable TSA Website Exposed by Threat Level Leads to Cronyism
Terrorist Watchlist Database Balloons
DHS Re-Launches Watchlist Help Site After 27B Crushed the Old One ...

Electronic Elections: Vote Fraud in the 21st Century

Intended as both an introduction to the subject and a call to action, "Electronic Elections: Vote Fraud in the 21st Century" is a short-format viral video designed to draw attention to one of the many urgent problems surrounding our modern voting system - the clear and present danger of electronic vote fraud

Independent Polls Confirm Ron Paul Is Drubbing Peden

There's more bad news for Pedenphiles - supporters of Ron Paul's Neo-Con rival Mark Peden - as new independent polls show Congressman Paul enjoying a massive 33 per cent lead in the race for Texas' District 14.

The establishment media and fawning neo-libs like Wonkette have done their level best to prop-up Peden as someone who has a legitimate chance of challenging Paul for his Congressional seat, and The Nation jumped on that same bandwagon just today.

In a sophomoric hit piece, The Lone Star Times website, which proudly displays a Peden for Congress banner, cited a report that claimed "Peden holds a double-digit lead over “the taxpayer’s best friend.”

But the real numbers tell a different story.

The independent Public Polling Policy organization has just released the results of a survey which shows Paul with a healthy 33 per cent lead over Peden.

Neo-Con Peden, who advocates the military occupation of the middle east for "the remainder of the century" (good luck selling that one bubba), has attacked Paul on the issue of Iraq and yet people who list Iraq as their main concern favor Paul over Peden 64-27.

Peden also went after Paul on moral grounds, but again, the Congressman has a 65-28 advantage over phony conservative Peden.

Amongst young voters, Paul trounces Peden by an embarrassing 75-11.

As we reported earlier this week, Peden resorted to putting out fake poll numbers in a crass attempt to offset the fact that Paul is trouncing him in the race for Texas' District 14 Congressional seat.

In reality, District 14 polls showed that 80 per cent of residents have never even heard of Peden.

Paul has also dwarfed Peden's fundraising, raking in $500,000 in the past month compared to Peden's pathetic $20,000.

Despite Ron Paul's overwhelming popularity, the media claimed all along that Peden was in with a shot and some even held him up as the favorite. In doing so, they were attempting to help the Councilman overturn a huge deficit by osmosis - but the effort has been an outright failure.

Shamed by Paul's brave anti-establishment standpoint during the Republican debates, the establishment press, who have marginalized, censored and smeared the Congressman at every turn, thought they could kick Dr. No out of Congress - how wrong they were.

Someone should let Chris Peden know that he's wasting his time - neatly quaffered, U.S. flag lapel pin wearing, warhawk cheerleading, fake Neo-Con phony conservatives are so 5 years ago. The people of Texas see through your facade Peden - now jog on.

Ron Paul on FOX Business

1 Man 6 Votes

UnEthical Legislators vote fraud TREASON caught on video

Alleged Hijacker Booked On Post-9/11 Flights

Astounding newly released FBI documents obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act show that alleged 9/11 hijacker Hamza Al-Ghamdi had booked future flights to San Francisco and Riyadh, suggesting that he was unaware of his eventual fate aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the plane that hit the World Trade Center's south tower.

The papers consist of a 300 page Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline that was used by the 9/11 Commission but not made public until now.

The 9/11 Commission failed to mention in its final report that Al-Ghamdi was booked onto several flights scheduled to take place after 9/11, including another flight on the very day of the attacks.

The fact that Al-Ghamdi had booked post-9/11 flights obviously gives rise to doubts about whether the alleged hijacker knew the 9/11 attack was a suicide mission and even brings into question if he was on the flight at all.

Citing “UA passenger information," on page 288 under an entry pertaining to “H AlGhamdi,” the FBI timeline reads: "Future flight. Scheduled to depart Los Angeles International Airport for San Francisco International Airport on UA 7950," reports Raw Story (excerpt below).

Al-Ghamdi was also booked to fly on September 20, 2001 from Casablanca, Morocco to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and September 29, where he planned to fly from Riyadh to Damman, Saudi Arabia.

The FBI timeline documents also contradict with several other details of the 9/11 Commission Report, notably on the movements of alleged Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar.

One In Every 99 Americans Now Behind Bars

Don't ask the U.S. prison system if this is indeed "the land of the free." For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 -- one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.By contrast, in mid 2002 the ratio was 1 in 142, with the prison population surpassing 2 million for the first time.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

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San Jose Police To Use Crowd Control Sound Wave Weapons

The devices caused controversy again in 2006 when the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne, proposed testing the weapons on American citizens before deploying them abroad.

“If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” said Wynne. “(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”

In a 2004 LA Times article entitled The Pentagon's secret scream sonic devices the manufacturers of the weapons described how they can inflict pain--or even permanent deafness:

"[For] most people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will produce the equivalent of an instant migraine," says Woody Norris, chairman of American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces the weapon. "It will knock [some people] on their knees."

American Technology says its new product "is designed to determine intent, change behavior and support various rules of engagement." The company is careful in its public relations not to refer to the megaphone as a weapon, or to dwell on the debilitating pain American forces will be able to deliver with it. The military has been equally reticent on the subject.

The devices were also used in New Orleans in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath when private security contractors confiscated guns and forced residents from their homes.

Mercury News provides this helpful guide to the "less lethal" weapon




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Ron Paul Vs. Ben Bernanke... Continued RP Statement and Fed Response 2/27/08

Congressman Ron Paul slammed Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke during a House Financial Services Committee meeting today for following a policy of deliberately destroying the dollar and wiping out the American middle class.

Paul held Bernanke to task over his refusal to address the decline of the dollar and its clear link to inflation.

"Inflation comes from the unwise increase in the supply of money credit....to argue that we can continue to debase the currency, which is really the policy of that you're following, purposely debasing value of currency - which to me seems so destructive....it just puts more pressure on the federal reserve to create capital out of thin air in order to stimulate the economy and usually that just goes into mal-investment," said Paul.
Paul highlighted the fact that the M3 money supply was rising at a rate of 16 per cent and that this was the real rate of inflation.

"History is against you," Paul told Bernanke, "History is on the side of hard money - if you look at stable prices you have to look at the only historic sound money that's lasted more than a few years - fiat money always ends, gold is the only thing where you get stable prices," he added, pointing out that despite the price of oil's rapid ascent, it had remained flat when compared to the price of gold.

"I cannot see how we can continue to accept the policy of deliberately destroying the value of money as an economic value," said Paul, adding that the policy was "immoral," and would lead to a reduction in American's living standards and "the middle class being wiped out."

Asked how he could defend a policy of deliberately depreciating the dollar, Bernanke stumbled through his response and was basically forced to agree with Paul's point.

Paul's comments come on the day that the dollar hit its all time low against the Euro.

Earlier this week, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan laid the groundwork for the further collapse of the greenback by encouraging Gulf states to abandon their dollar peg.

Watch Paul's opening statement.

How to Start Your Own Country in Four Easy Steps

With Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence and a host of wannabe states looking to follow its lead, you might be thinking it’s about time to set up your own country. You’ve picked out a flag, written a national anthem, even printed up money with your face on it. But what’s the next step? Creating a new country isn’t as easy as you think.


Step 1: Make sure you are eligible

As tempting as it might be to declare your cubicle a sovereign state, customary international law actually does specify minimum standards for statehood.

You must have a defined territory.
You must have a permanent population.
You must have a government.
Your government must be capable of interacting with other states. (This one is somewhat controversial. It was included as a qualification in the 1933 Montevideo Convention, which established the United States’ “good neighbor” policy of nonintervention in Latin America, but is generally not recognized as international law.)
Step 2: Declare independence

Congratulations on joining the ranks of Transnistria, Somaliland, and a host of other countries that won’t be marching at the Olympics anytime soon. Just because you’ve met the qualifications and declared yourself independent doesn’t mean that you’re going to be taken seriously. Even the Principality of Sealand—located on a 10,000-square-foot platform in the North Sea—has tried with mixed success to claim sovereignty under these qualifications.

However, now that your state is established, there are certain benefits you can expect, even if you’re not recognized by anyone. “Once an entity has established itself as a de facto state, it will benefit from territorial integrity and certain guarantees of sovereignty,” says Stefan Talmon, professor of public international law at Oxford University and author of Recognition in International Law. “For instance, now that Kosovo is established as a state, Serbia can no longer freely attack it to bring it back into Serbia. It benefits from the prohibition of the use of force under the U.N. Charter.” These rules were established during the Cold War to protect new states that were not yet recognized by one bloc or another.

Step 3: Get recognized

There’s not much point in having your own country unless other countries acknowledge your existence. International recognition is what gives a country legitimacy in the international community and what ultimately distinguishes the New Zealands of the world from the Nagorno-Karabakhs. Naturally, though, the established countries are going to take some convincing. “Recognition is quite complicated because it combines international law and international politics,” Talmon says. “Some people say that recognition is a purely political act. It is at the discretion of existing states whether they recognize, so there is no right to recognition.”

This was especially true during the Cold War, when the national legitimacy of North and South Vietnam, North and South Korea, and East and West Germany depended on which side you asked. Even today, a number of entities are recognized as states by some countries, but not by others. Palestine, Taiwan, and Northern Cyprus fall into this category.

The United States has no official policy on what is required for recognition, according to its State Department. Instead, the decision to recognize a state is made by the president. Then the president decides whether to establish diplomatic relations with the state based on U.S. national interests. There’s no cookie-cutter approach, so when you ask for recognition, be sure to explain how your independence will be good for America. In the old days, proving your anti-communist cred was usually good enough. Today, U.S. strategic priorities are a bit more complex, though as Kosovo proves, ticking off the Russians still helps.

Step 4: Join the club

Since its founding in 1945, membership in the United Nations has become the gold standard of international legitimacy. “When you are admitted to the U.N, that’s a form of approval,” Talmon says. “It’s like a stamp [that says] you are now a full member of the international community.”

Applying for U.N. membership is a breeze. According to U.N. rules, all you need to do is write a letter to the secretary-general requesting membership. These letters are remarkably short and simple. For a handy template, check out the successful application of Montenegro, the United Nations’ most recent member.

You can mail your application to:

Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
The United Nations
First Ave. at 46th St.
New York, NY 10017

Now comes the hard part. The Security Council must refer you to the General Assembly, which must determine by a two-thirds majority that you are a “peace-loving state” that can carry out the duties of the U.N. Charter.

It’s probably not even worth trying this unless you’ve completed step 3. A number of unrecognized states have applied for U.N. recognition over the years, including American-Indian tribes, but without the credibility bestowed by bilateral recognition, these applications are usually just filed away.

The biggest obstacle to U.N. membership is power politics. Neither North nor South Korea got U.N. membership until 1991 because of vetoes by one bloc or another during the Cold War. Even today, Russia’s veto on the Security Council will probably prevent Kosovo from gaining a seat at the table anytime soon. The Republic of China, a.k.a. Taiwan, was one of the founding members of the United Nations and once had a “permanent” seat on the Security Council. But Taiwan was booted out in favor of the People’s Republic of China in 1971, after U.S. President Richard Nixon decided to cozy up to Beijing. The Taiwanese government has applied for membership every year since 1993, but to no avail. The United Nations didn’t even bother to open Taiwan’s most recent letter.

As you can see, the point at which a territory officially becomes a country is very much in the eyes of the beholder. International recognition can be an elusive prize. The good news? The longer you wait, the better your chances become. In international law, which is often based on custom, the longer you can maintain your de facto sovereignty, the more likely you are to be accepted. (Unless, of course, you’re Taiwan.)

The strength of Kosovo’s bid for independence from Serbia is based largely on the fact that it has, for all intents and purposes, been independent for almost a decade. In a more extreme example, the 900-year-old Sovereign Order of Malta has diplomatic relations with 100 countries and observer status at the United Nations even though its entire territory is contained in a few buildings in Rome. So don’t be discouraged. Starting your own country isn’t impossible. It’s just going to require a lot of patience and the right friends

Self-Publish Boom Challenging Old Order

'While sales within America's multibillion dollar book marketplace stagnate - Harry Potter excepted - the once somewhat disrespected world of self-publishing is blossoming.'A slew of companies are now bundling together internet-based technologies that have taped into a rich vein of printer's ink.'Five-year old publish-on-demand pioneer Lulu says it is doubling in size every year. Even though it won't release specific revenues or profits it does say that globally as many as 15,000 people register at its site each week mostly to create books but also calendars, music and DVDs.'

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Say It With Bullets

The best writers communicate their ideas in the fewest words possible. So it was with the Founding Fathers: They crammed a lot of history and meaning into the sentence "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

In The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms: A Definitive History of the Second Amendment, David E. Young unpacks the much-debated right with extensive historical references. Critics will make a number of charges, and correctly -- Young is an independent, non-credentialed historian; he too often paraphrases his source material instead of using quotes; his prose is a bit awkward. But the book is an invaluable work for those who want to know the truth about guns and the Constitution, especially in light of the current Supreme Court case regarding Washington, D.C.'s gun-control laws. The debate rages: Can all individual Americans have guns, or does the Second Amendment only protect arms-bearing when it relates to the militia?

The answer is complicated because American history took several steps in creating the amendment we all know and love. The language began in state declarations of rights, and when the fight over the Constitution came, some states proposed federal amendments based on those rights. From those proposals, early lawmakers pared down the verbiage into its current form. Drawing heavily his 1995 primary-source collection The Origin of the Second Amendment, Young details each step and the public debates that took place in between.

State declarations of rights frequently incorporated a three-part formulation by George Mason, which Young dubs the Mason Triad. Here it is in Virginia's declaration:


That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

Of particular note is the assertion that a "well-regulated militia" is "composed of the body of the people, trained to arms." Also pay attention to the dual purpose: The right guaranteed arms for the defense of the state, but it also placed the government military under "strict subordination."

Subsequent state declarations varied quite a bit in their precise wording, particularly in the first part of the triad. Some chose the "right of the people to bear arms" language, and others chose the "well regulated militia" formulation, but none included both as the final amendment would. Young argues that the two phrases were understood to mean exactly the same thing -- a well regulated militia is the people, and almost every time early lawmakers felt the need to define a well regulated militia, that's how they did it.

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Forget Global Warming: Welcome to the New Ice Age

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

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Middle Class May Be Subject To Food Rations, Warns UN

The UN is warning of a food shortage crisis and drawing up plans for food rations which will hit even middle-class suburban populations as inflation and economic uncertainty causes the prices of staple food commodities to skyrocket.

The United Nation's World Food Programme cautions today that if it doesn't receive more funding, it will have to halt food aid to developing countries like Mexico and China.

"The WFP crisis talks come as the body sees the emergence of a “new area of hunger” in developing countries where even middle-class, urban people are being “priced out of the food market” because of rising food prices," reports the Financial Times.

The warning coincides with a speech by William Lapp, of US-based consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions, who cautioned that rising agricultural raw material prices would translate this year into sharply higher food inflation.

It also parallels a prediction by Don Coxe, a Chicago-based global portfolio strategist for BMO Financial Group who correctly forecast the fall of the dollar and the rise in price of gold and oil years in advance, who last week spoke of a "global food crisis" which will cause the world to enter into, "A period of food shortages and swiftly rising prices," leading to government embargoes.

With the U.S. on the verge of a recession and, as many analysts have warned, a potential second great depression, those long scoffed at for hoarding vast quantities of storable food may unfortunately be able to say "I told you so" if the dollar continues to deteriorate and people begin to be priced out of the food market.

Global food prices have skyrocketed by as much as 60 per cent in the past year, while UN officials warn of the likelihood of food riots.

"If prices continue to rise, I would not be surprised if we began to see food riots,” said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, last October.

Many see the food shortages, whether real or manufactured, as simply another pretext for the implementation of martial law and the introduction of foreign troops to patrol major U.S. cities.

A recent announcement by Northcom confirmed that U.S. and Canadian troops will be allowed to patrol each other's countries in the event of a national emergency.

"U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, and Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, commander of Canada Command, have signed a Civil Assistance Plan that allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency," reads a Northcom press release.

Nader Will Run Again

Ralph Nader announced on NBC's Meet The Press that he will run for president as a third-party candidate. Question is if Paul is his running mate does it affect his congress seat? Im pretty sure he could stay republican and be vice president.

Woman Captured After Throwing Food at Secret Service Agent Before Obama Rally

KTBC-TV: A woman trying to get through the area blocked off for Barack Obama's rally Friday night was detained by the Secret Service. Just before 4:00 p.m. an agent tried to stop the woman from getting through. During the scuffle the agent got covered in the woman's food

When Paul Supporters Attack