Tanvir v. Lynch (formerly Tanvir v. Holder) Tanvir v. Lynch (formerly Tanvir v. Holder) is a federal lawsuit filed against the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security that challenges the FBI’s abuse of the No-Fly List to coerce law-abiding American Muslims into spying on their religious communities. The government operates the No Fly List under near-total secrecy and never tells people on the List why they are listed or gives them a meaningful chance to dispute their placement. Plaintiffs in the case are four American Muslim men with no criminal records who were approached by the FBI in an effort to recruit them as informants.
As a result of their placement on the No-Fly List and the FBI’s unwarranted scrutiny, some of the plaintiffs have not been able to see family members overseas for years. The original complaint, on behalf of plaintiff Muhammad Tanvir, was filed by the CLEAR project of CUNY School of Law and later joined by CCR. “I have no words. Barack Obama's Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers - The InterceptThe Intercept. Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.
Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined. The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. “If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. A milestone. Terrorist database continues to grow at rapid rate.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The government is rapidly expanding the number of names it accepts for inclusion on its terrorist watch list, with more than 1.5 million added in the last five years, according to numbers divulged by the government in a civil lawsuit. About 99 percent of the names submitted are accepted, leading to criticism that the government is "wildly loose" in its use of the list.
Those included in the Terrorist Screening Database could find themselves on the government's no-fly list or face additional scrutiny at airports, though only a small percentage of people in the database are actually on the list. It has been known for years that the government became more aggressive in nominating people for the watch list following al-Qaida operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed effort to blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. But the numbers disclosed by the government show submissions have snowballed.
U.S. US terrorist database growing at rapid rate. ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) — The U.S. government is rapidly expanding the number of names it accepts for inclusion on its terrorist watch list, with more than 1.5 million added in the last five years, according to numbers divulged by the government in a civil lawsuit. About 99 percent of the names submitted are accepted, leading to criticism that the government is "wildly loose" in its use of the list. Those included in the Terrorist Screening Database could find themselves on the government's no-fly list or face additional scrutiny at airports, though only a small percentage of people in the database are actually on the list. It has been known for years that the government became more aggressive in nominating people for the watch list following al-Qaida operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed effort to blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
But the numbers disclosed by the government show submissions have snowballed. U.S. Politics & Government. Blacklisted: The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a TerroristThe Intercept. The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept. The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings.
The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place entire “categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists.
How the US's terrorism watchlists work – and how you could end up on one. Placement on a terrorism watchlist is a life-changing event. Your travel is monitored and in many cases restricted. If overseas, you could be stranded, costing your employment or reunion with your family. You could be detained and, certain lawsuits allege, tortured by foreign governments. Yet the ease with which someone can be placed on US watchlists and terrorism databases contrasts markedly with the impact placement has. The rise – and the low standards the Intercept documented – is partially explained by the near-miss airliner bombing in Christmas 2009, by a man connected to a Yemeni branch of al-Qaida.
That secrecy, as the Intercept's publication indicates, is starting to erode – slowly. They're reading your tweets The watchlisting guidance says that "first amendment protected activity alone shall not be the basis" for nominating someone to the lists. The guidelines recognize that looking at "postings on social media sites" is constitutionally problematic. Watch how you walk. Directorate of Terrorist Identities (DTI) Strategic Accomplishments 2013. US Air Force veteran, finally allowed to fly into US, is now banned from flying back home | Rights & Liberties. US citizen on no-fly list detained after cruise. By Michael Migliore/AP McLEAN, Va. – An Oregon man who traveled to England by boat because of his apparent placement on the no-fly list was detained Monday upon his arrival in Great Britain, according to his family and lawyer.
Michael Migliore, a 23-year-old Muslim convert and dual citizen of the U.S. and Italy, had been trying unsuccessfully for months to fly to Italy to live with his mother. Migliore says he was told earlier this year that he is on the no-fly list, though U.S. officials refuse to confirm it publicly. He believes he is on the list because he refused to be interviewed without a lawyer by FBI agents after an acquaintance was charged last year in a plot to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland. He ended up traveling by Amtrak from Portland to New York, where he took a trans-Atlantic cruise that arrived in England Monday.
The trip took more than a week. Upon arrival, though, he was apparently detained by British authorities. “He was finished in the States. Exclusive: U.S. expansion of biometric tech poses ‘grave danger,’ ACLU tells Raw Story. By Stephen C. WebsterFriday, March 25, 2011 13:09 EDT A recent announcement by the Federal Bureau of Investigations detailing plans to embark on a $1 billion biometrics project and construct an advanced biometrics facility to be shared with the Pentagon has the American Civil Liberties Union on red alert. In an exclusive interview with Raw Story, attorney Chris Calabrese, an ACLU’s legislative counsel in Washington, D.C., warned that this move in particular was indicative of a fast approaching mass surveillance state that poses a “grave danger” to American values. The FBI’s forthcoming biometrics center will be based on a system constructed by defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and part of that system is already operating today in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
“We think rolling out these kind of invasive measures is really another step toward mass surveillance of the population,” Calabrese told Raw Story. He went on: “In the United States, you’re innocent until proven guilty for a reason.