1st January 2011
US Watching on the Basis of a Single Tip-Off
Mark Hanson
The United States has been keeping a “watch list” of those which they monitor due to suspicions that they may engage in terrorism-related activity. This list has been kept since 2001, and is a well used tool for US government agencies to track and identify those it suspects to be a danger to US security.
During the summer of 2010, however, the criteria used to place individuals on the list was changed so that a tip off by a single person is sufficient to have another person put on the list. The adjustment was made in light of the alleged attempted attack on a Detroit bound airline by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. US authorities had been warned by Abdulmutallab’s father that he was being radicalised in Yemen, yet at that time a single-source tip off was not considered reliable enough to place someone on the list.
The watch list, which acts as a master list to roughly a dozen other databases held by the US, gives the federal government, the security services, and authorities right down to local police officers the ability to check persons stopped for any offence and match them against the list of names of persons being “watched”. Movements may be restricted, and visas and entry into the US may be prohibited. The majority of those on the list are not US citizens.
It would be foolish to suggest that there is no threat from terrorism, or that the governments of the world shouldn’t attempt to combat it, but the moves that are still being routinely taken to sacrifice liberal democratic freedom in the interests of supposed security, are alarming.
Civil liberties groups in America have voiced concern that innocent individuals may now have an increased chance of being placed on the list. Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "They are secret lists with no way for people to petition to get off or even to know if they're on".
