How ordinary Americans end up on the Terrorist Watch List

The FBI should be renamed the Federal Bureau of Incompetence. The gang that failed to investigate suspicious middle eastern men at flight schools BEFORE Sept. 11, bungled the investigation of the anthrax attacks for three years before then fingering the wrong man, and who insisted an Oregon lawyer was linked to deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid five years ago, is back in the news with a  story which will reinforce the notion that they are a bunch of Barney Fife's.

A report released yesterday by the Department of Justice lambasted the Bureau for failing to clear as many as 24,000 Americans that were mistakenly put on the Terrorist Watch List. 

The report strongly criticized law enforcement for relying on outdated and incorrect information in the cases of both innocent and suspected terrorist suspects.

According to Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times, more than one third of the nearly 70,000 records reviewed by DoJ Inspector General Glenn Fine, were wrong. Equally troubling was a Fine's review of 216 actual terrorism cases , that 35 individuals or 15 percent, should have rightfully been added to the TWL but had not been.

In one case, for instance, a Special Forces soldier was investigated and ultimately convicted of stealing some 16,500 rounds of ammunition, C-4 explosives and other matériel from Afghanistan and shipping them to the United States in what investigators suspected might be the makings of a domestic terrorist plot. Yet the suspect was not placed on the watch list until nearly five months after the investigation opened.

“We believe that the F.B.I.’s failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watch list could pose a risk to national security,” the inspector general said.

In my opinion, the Bush Administration's reliance on an algorithm known as Mosaic theory was the main problem with the TWL.  The idea behind Mosaic is that guilt or innocence of any terror suspect is moot because potentially some useful information may be gleamed from the investigation.  This is quoted directly from an FBI affadavit:

The business of counterterrorism intelligence gathering in the United States is akin to the construction of a mosaic. At this stage of the investigation, the FBI is gathering and processing thousands of bits and pieces of information that may seem innocuous at first glance. We must analyze all that information, however, to see if it can be fit into a picture that will reveal how the unseen whole operates (My emphasis). The significance of one item of information may frequently depend on knowledge of many other items of information. What may seem trivial to some may appear of great moment to those within the FBI or the intelligence community who have a broader context within which to consider a questioned item or isolated piece of information. At the present stage of this vast investigation, the FBI is gathering and culling information that may corroborate or diminish our current suspicions of the individuals who have been detained. The Bureau is approaching that task with unprecedented resources and a nationwide urgency. In the meantime, the FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that respondent is somehow linked to, or possesses knowledge of, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To protect the public, the FBI must exhaust all avenues of investigation while ensuring the crucial information does not evaporate pending further investigation."

So in other words, it didn't matter under Mosaic Theory whether or not people actually belonged on the TWL. I should point out that many of the so-called Enemy Combatants captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere were detained under Mosaic Theory, and of course because the Northern Alliance often got as much $500 per detainee. 

Much as we learned that the torture programs of the Bush Administration were designed to create false confessions. Mosaic seemed to be used to trumpet the prowess of law enforcement, covert agents, and the military in fighting the war on terror. The validity of the charges did not matter because under Mosaic, anything had the potential to be useful, regardless of the fact  of whether or not it actually was.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said her group’s monitoring of watch lists indicated that the problems identified at the F.B.I. were endemic to the entire system.

“What this report really shows is that on both ends, the lists are really overinclusive and underinclusive,” Ms. Fredrickson said in an interview. “With 1.1 million names, there’s all sorts of problems that have larded it up, and the whole thing just really needs to be torn down and start a new system.”

Indeed, the TFL needs to be completely overhauled when Senator Kennedy, Congressman John Lewis, the Washington director of the ACLU and the wife of a Republican Senator are mistakenly placed on the list.