Day: June 13, 2007

Are You on the Terror List? 509,000 People Are

Trish

The FBI watch list of suspected terrorists is so long, it would be easier to tell you who they’re not monitoring than who they are.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

You can check the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list of suspected money launderers yourself

A portion of the FBI’s unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to “the entire watch list of 509,000 names,” which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force…

“It grows seemingly without control or limitation,” said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani of the terrorism watch list. Sparapani called the 509,000 figure “stunning.”

“If we have 509,000 names on that list, the watch list is virtually useless,” he told ABC News. “You’ll be capturing innocent individuals with no connection to crime or terror.”

“Useless” is probably accurate.

U.S. lawmakers and their spouses have been detained because their names were on the watch list.

Reporters who have reviewed versions of the list found it included the names of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, at the time he was alive but in custody in Iraq; imprisoned al Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui; and 14 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers, all of whom perished in the attacks.

The same can be said for the OFAC list, which all financial institutions must check before opening a new account. That’s right, before you can open a checking account, some poor teller has to look to see if you’re there.

But unlike the FBI’s “secret” list, you can check the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list of suspected money launderers yourself by simply going here.

After you get through the A’s, which all start with “Al-” something, the list gets more interesting. But like the FBI’s, it still contains this entry, under a couple of different spellings:

HUSSAIN, Saddam (a.k.a. ABU ALI; a.k.a. AL-TIKRITI, Saddam Hussein;
a.k.a. HUSAYN, Saddam; a.k.a. HUSSEIN, Saddam); DOB 28 Apr 1937;
POB al-Awja, near Tikrit, Iraq; nationality Iraq; named in UNSCR
1483; President since 1979 (individual) [IRAQ2]

Is it any wonder Americans don’t want to hand over their civil liberties in exchange for the “security” offered by our government?

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

But what certainty is there about money, which, after all, holds all the world together? It depends on the good will of a few capitalists to keep the agreement that one metal is worth more than another.

— Ivar Keuger (1880-1932), Swedish industrialist

Republican Candidates to Boycott Latino Convention

Trish

I hate going to Disneyworld too, so I understand every major Republican presidential candidate wanting to stay away. But…staging what amounts to a virtual boycott of what is known as the Latino political convention doesn’t seem like a smart move.

Especially when, according to a June 11 press release, all the Democrats will be there.

Do they take the votes of this demographic as a given, or are they writing them off as going Democrat?

Los Angeles, CA – The Democratic contenders in the 2008 presidential campaign will participate in a candidate forum hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in Orlando on June 30…

The participating candidates will include, in alphabetical order, Senator Joe Biden (DE), Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Senator Chris Dodd (CT), former Senator John Edwards (NC), Representative Dennis Kucinich (OH), Senator Barack Obama (IL) and Governor Bill Richardson (NM).

NALEO extended identical invitations to the Republican presidential candidates to participate in a separate forum. All have declined to date.

So the question is, why do the Republicans think they can snub Latinos? Do they take the votes of this demographic as a given, or are they writing them off as going Democrat?

…several factors put the Hispanic vote in play. Among them: Non-Cubans aren’t as likely to have historical ties to the Republican Party as Cuban-Americans.

“Living in Weston, I see it just walking around the neighborhood. There are people from Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. They don’t have the same preconditioning to vote Republican,” said Weston resident Andrew Torres, president of the new Broward chapter of the state Democratic Party’s Hispanic Caucus…

Florida U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said once Castro is gone, “you will see Cuban-Americans shift to the Democratic Party.”

…Torres said the increasing numbers of younger voters and people from countries other than Cuba make this a good time to capitalize on trends favoring Democrats.

The explanation could be simple, of course.

National and state Republican officials did not comment on why GOP hopefuls will not participate in the conference, but the campaigns of Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney cited scheduling conflicts.

Those durn scheduling conflicts. Funny how they never crop up when it’s time to come to South Florida and fund-raise. And no matter how you slice it, boycotting the convention of their fellow elected officials can’t win many friends. Not to mention there are two other groups piggybacking off the event — the National Hispana Leadership Institute and the Orlando Chamber of Commerce’s Hispanic Summit.

Maybe there really is a simple reason. Republicans might just want to distance themselves from immigrants — and please their xenophobic base — as much as possible.