{"id":45900,"date":"2014-08-11T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=45900"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:30:46","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:30:46","slug":"barack-obamas-secret-terrorist-tracking-system-by-the-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/08\/barack-obamas-secret-terrorist-tracking-system-by-the-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama\u2019s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"watch_commander<\/a><\/p>\n

5 Aug 2014 – <\/em>Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government\u2019s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents<\/a> obtained by The Intercept<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government\u2019s Terrorist Screening Database\u2014a watchlist of \u201cknown or suspected terrorists\u201d that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments\u2014more than 40 percent are described by the government as having \u201cno recognized terrorist group affiliation.\u201d That category\u2014280,000 people\u2014dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.<\/p>\n

The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has\u00a0presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted\u00a0the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000\u2014surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,\u201d says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is \u201crevving out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"shrug_chart_final1<\/a>The classified documents were prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, the lead agency for tracking individuals with suspected links to international terrorism. Stamped \u201cSECRET\u201d and \u201cNOFORN\u201d (indicating they are not to be shared with foreign governments), they offer the most complete numerical picture of the watchlisting system to date. Among the revelations:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The second-highest concentration of people designated as \u201cknown or suspected terrorists\u201d by the government is in Dearborn, Mich.\u2014a city of 96,000 that has the largest percentage of Arab-American residents in the country.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The government adds names to its databases, or adds information on existing subjects, at a rate of 900 records each day.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The CIA uses a previously unknown program, code-named Hydra, to secretly access databases maintained by foreign countries and extract \u00a0data to add to the watchlists.<\/p>\n

A U.S.\u00a0counterterrorism official familiar with watchlisting data\u00a0told The Intercept<\/em> that as of November 2013, there were approximately 700,000 people in the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, but declined to provide the current numbers. Last month, the Associated Press, citing federal court filings by government lawyers, reported that there have been 1.5 million names added to the watchlist<\/a> over the past five years. The government official told The Intercept<\/em> that was a misinterpretation of the data. \u201cThe list has grown somewhat since that time, but is nowhere near the 1.5 million figure cited in recent news reports,\u201d he said. He added that the statistics cited by the Associated Press do not just include nominations of individuals, but also bits of intelligence or biographical information obtained on watchlisted persons.<\/p>\n

When U.S. officials refer to \u201cthe watchlist,\u201d they typically mean the TSDB, an unclassified pool of information shared across the intelligence community and the military, as well as local law enforcement, foreign governments, and private contractors. According to the government\u2019s watchlisting guidelines, published by The Intercept<\/em> last month<\/a>, officials don\u2019t need \u201cconcrete facts\u201d or \u201cirrefutable evidence\u201d to secretly place someone on the list\u2014only a vague and elastic standard of \u201creasonable suspicion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need some fact-basis to say a guy is a terrorist, that you know to a probable-cause standard that he is a terrorist,\u201d says Gomez, the former FBI agent. \u201cThen I say, \u2018Build as big a file as you can on him.\u2019 But if you just suspect that somebody is a terrorist? Not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Counterterrorism Center did not respond to questions about its terrorist screening system. Instead, in a statement, it praised the watchlisting system as a \u201ccritical layer in our counterrorism defenses\u201d and described it as superior to the pre-9\/11 process for tracking threats, which relied on lists that were \u201ctyped or hand-written in card catalogues and ledgers.\u201d The White House declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\"TIDE_by_the_numbers<\/a><\/p>\n

A milestone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most people placed on the government\u2019s watchlist begin in a larger, classified system known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE). The TIDE database actually allows for targeting people based on far less evidence than the already lax standards used for placing people on the watchlist. A more expansive\u2014and invasive\u2014database, TIDE\u2019s information is shared across the U.S. intelligence community, as well as with commando units from the Special Operations Command and with domestic agencies such as the New York City Police Department.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2013, officials celebrated what one classified document prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center refers to as \u201ca milestone\u201d\u2014boosting the number of people in the TIDE database to a total of one million, up from half a million four years earlier.<\/p>\n

The document credits that historic achievement to the Directorate of Terrorist Identities (DTI), a secretive and virtually unknown U.S. counterterrorism unit responsible for maintaining TIDE. \u201cThis number is a testament to DTI\u2019s hard work and dedication over the past 2.5 years,\u201d the document declares.<\/p>\n

The number is also a testament to the Obama administration\u2019s intensified collection of personal information on individuals with suspected links to terrorism. In 2006, CBS News obtained a copy of the no fly list and reported that it included 44,000 names, including Bolivian President Evo Morales and the head of Lebanon\u2019s parliament. Faced with a widespread public backlash, the government cut the list down to just 4,000 names by late 2009.<\/p>\n

The next year, after the so-called \u201cunderwear bomber\u201d tried to bring down a commercial airliner bound for Detroit, Obama loosened the criteria for adding people to the no fly list. The impact was immediate. Since 2010, the classified documents note, the National Counterterrorism Center has \u201ccreated more than 430,000 terrorism-related person records\u201d while deleting only 50,000 people \u201cwhose nexus to terrorism was refuted or did not meet current watchlisting criteria.\u201d The documents reveal that more than 240 TIDE \u201cnominations\u201d are now processed each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might as well have a blue wand and just pretend there\u2019s magic in it, because that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing with this\u2014pretending that it works,\u201d says former FBI agent Michael German, now\u00a0a fellow at New York University\u2019s Brennan Center for Justice. \u201cThese agencies see terrorism as a winning card for them. They get more resources. They know that they can wave that card around and the American public will be very afraid and Congress and the courts will allow them to get away with whatever they\u2019re doing under the national security umbrella.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"crowd<\/a><\/p>\n

Watchlisting by the numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the documents, the government emphasizes that it seeks to add only as many people to the TIDE list \u201cas are necessary for our nation\u2019s counterterrorism mission.\u201d With hundreds of new nominations coming in every day, the numbers provide only a momentary snapshot of a watchlist system that is in constant motion.<\/p>\n

An August 2013 slide from the National Counterterrorism Center called\u00a0\u201cTIDE By The Numbers\u201d\u00a0lays out the scope of the Obama administration\u2019s watchlisting system, and those it is targeting.\u00a0According to the document, which notes that the numbers are \u201capproximate,\u201d 680,000 people have been watchlisted, with another 320,000 monitored in the larger TIDE database. As of August 2013, 5,000 Americans were on the watchlist while another 15,800 were targeted in TIDE.<\/p>\n

Among the other revelations in the documents:<\/p>\n

\u2022 16,000 people, including 1,200 Americans, have been classified as \u201cselectees\u201d who are targeted for enhanced screenings at airports and border crossings.<\/p>\n

\u2022 There are 611,000 men on the main terrorist watchlist and 39,000 women.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The top \u201cnominating agencies\u201d responsible for placing people on the government\u2019s watchlists are: the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The top five U.S. cities represented on the main watchlist for \u201cknown or suspected terrorists\u201d are New York; Dearborn, Mich.; Houston; San Diego; and Chicago. At 96,000 residents, Dearborn is much smaller than the other cities in the top five, suggesting that its significant Muslim population\u201440 percent of its population is of Arab descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau\u2014has been disproportionately targeted for watchlisting.\u00a0Residents and civil liberties advocates havefrequently argued the Muslim, Arab and Sikh communities in and around Dearborn are unfairly targeted by invasive law enforcement probes, unlawful profiling, and racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo my knowledge, there have been no Muslims in Dearborn who\u00a0have committed acts of terrorism against our country,\u201d Dawud Walid,\u00a0executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on\u00a0American-Islamic Relations, told The Intercept<\/em>. Walid added that\u00a0the high concentration of Dearborn residents in the watchlisting system \u201cjust confirms the type of engagement the\u00a0government has with our community\u2014as seeing us as perpetual suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"nofly_numbers_v9<\/a><\/p>\n

The documents also offer a glimpse into which groups the government is targeting in its counterterrorism mission. The groups with the largest number of targeted people on the main terrorism watchlist\u2014aside from \u201cno recognized terrorist group affiliation\u201d\u2014are al Qaeda in Iraq (73,189), the Taliban (62,794), and al Qaeda (50,446). Those are followed by Hamas (21,913) and Hezbollah (21,199).<\/p>\n

Although the Obama administration has repeatedly asserted that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula poses the most significant external terrorist threat to the United States, the 8,211 people identified as being tied to the group actually represent the smallest category on the list of the top ten recognized terrorist organizations. AQAP is outnumbered by people suspected of ties to the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network (12,491), the Colombia-based FARC (11,275,) and the Somalia-based al-Shabab (11,547).<\/p>\n

The documents also reveal that as of last year, the U.S. had designated 3,200 people as \u201cknown or suspected terrorists\u201d associated with the war in Syria. Among them were 715 Europeans and Canadians, as well as 41 Americans. Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently claimed that there are more than 12,000 foreign fighters in Syria, including more than 1,000 Westerners and roughly 100 Americans.<\/p>\n

\"biometric<\/a><\/p>\n

Biometric data<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the documents, the government does much more than simply stop watchlisted people at airports. It also covertly collects and analyzes a wide range of personal information about those individuals \u2013including facial images, fingerprints, and iris scans.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of last year\u2019s Boston Marathon bombing, the Directorate of Terrorist Identities began an aggressive program to collect biometric data and other information on all Americans on the TIDE list. \u201cThis project includes record by record research of each person in relevant Department of State and [intelligence community] databases, as well as bulk data requests for information,\u201d the documents note.<\/p>\n

The DTI also worked on the subsequent Chicago Marathon, performing \u201cdeep dives\u201d for biometric and other data on people in the Midwest whose names were on the TIDE list. In the process, the directorate pulled the TIDE records of every person with an Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin driver license.<\/p>\n

DTI\u2019s efforts in Boston and Chicago are part of a broader push to obtain biometric information on the more than one million people targeted in its secret database. This includes hundreds of thousands of people who are not watchlisted. In 2013, the directorate\u2019s Biometric Analysis Branch (BAB) launched an initiative to obtain biometric data from driver\u2019s license records across the country. At least 15 states and the District of Columbia are working with the directorate to facilitate access to facial images from driver\u2019s licenses. In fiscal year 2013, 2,400 such images were provided for inclusion in the secret TIDE database.<\/p>\n

According to the documents, BAB offers its \u201cunique skill of facial identification support\u201d to a \u201cbroad customer base.\u201d Last year its analysts produced more than 290 reports for other government entities, including the CIA, the New York City Police Department, and the military\u2019s elite Special Operations Command.<\/p>\n

All told, the classified documents show, the government compiles strikingly detailed dossiers of data on individuals who have been swept up in its databases. Though some of the documents obtained by The Intercept<\/em> offer conflicting information on how much biometric data the government collects,the most detailed report shows that:<\/p>\n

\u2022 In 2013, the main terrorism database included more than 860,000 biometric files on 144,000 people.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The database contains more than a half a million facial images, nearly a quarter of a million fingerprints and 70,000 iris scans.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The government maintains biometric data on people that it hasn\u2019t identified\u2013TIDE contains 1,800 \u201cBUPs,\u201d or \u201cbiometrics of unknown persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 In a single year, the government expanded its collection of \u201cnon-traditional\u201d biometric data, including dramatic increases in handwriting samples (32 percent), signatures (52 percent), scars, marks, and tattoos (70 percent), and DNA strands (90 percent).<\/p>\n

\"biometric_holdings_chart<\/a>\u201cWe\u2019re getting into Minority Report<\/em> territory when being friends with the wrong person can mean the government puts you in a database and adds DMV photos, iris scans, and face recognition technology to track you secretly and without your knowledge,\u201d says Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s National Security Project. \u201cThe fact that this information can be shared with agencies from the CIA to the NYPD, which are not known for protecting civil liberties, brings us closer to an invasive and rights-violating government surveillance society at home and abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DTI also goes far beyond accessing information from state driver\u2019s licenses. In managing the main terrorism database, the directorate coordinates with the CIA and the National Media Exploitation Center,\u00a0a Pentagon wing responsible for analyzing and disseminating \u201cpaper documents, electronic media, videotapes, audiotapes, and electronic equipment\u201d seized abroad in military or intelligence operations.<\/p>\n

By sharing information with the military, the National Counterterrorism Center asserts, the DTI is able to \u201cobtain additional data fusion points by accessing and exploiting NMEC data holdings.\u201d In return, the directorate \u201cprovides NMEC with a classified biometric search capability against TIDE through automated and manual facial identification support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DTI also harvests information from CIA sources, including a secret database called CINEMA\u2014\u00a0short for CIA Information Needs Management\u2014and a secret CIA program called \u201cHydra,\u201d which\u00a0utilizes \u201cclandestinely acquired foreign government information\u201d to enhance the quality of \u201cselect populations\u201d in TIDE.<\/p>\n

In 2013, DTI and the CIA ran a \u201cproof of concept\u201d for Hydra, using Pakistan as a guinea pig.\u00a0The DTI provided the CIA with a list of 555 Pakistanis in the TIDE database. After inputting the names into Hydra, the CIA \u201cvetted these names against Pakistani Passports\u201d and provided biographic and biometric identifiers to the DTI.<\/p>\n

Pleased with its initial success, the government plans to expand its clandestine data-mining operation. \u201cFuture initiatives,\u201d the documents note, \u201cwill include additional targeted countries.\u201d The CIA declined to comment on the program.<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

Jeremy Scahill is an investigative reporter, war correspondent and author of the international bestselling books <\/em>Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield\u00a0<\/em>and <\/em>Blackwater: The Rise of the World\u2019s Most Powerful Mercenary Army<\/em>.\u00a0He has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill has served as the National Security Correspondent for <\/em>The Nation Magazine <\/em>and <\/em>Democracy Now!.<\/em> His work has sparked several Congressional investigations and won some of journalism\u2019s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for his book <\/em>Blackwater.<\/em>\u00a0Scahill is a producer and writer of the award-winning film <\/em>Dirty Wars<\/em>, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and has been nominated for an Academy Award.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ryan Devereaux is a Brooklyn-based journalist covering national security. His interests include counter-terrorism, drug prohibition and human rights. Ryan\u2019s work has appeared at <\/em>The Guardian<\/em>, RollingStone.com, <\/em>The Nation<\/em>, <\/em>Democracy Now!<\/em>, <\/em>The Village Voice<\/em> and elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

Josh Begley contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo credits: Obama: Jewel Samad\/AFP\/Getty Images; Crowd: Mario Tama\/Getty Images; Iris Scan: Mauricio Lima\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Aug 2014 – Nearly half of the 680,000 people on the U.S. government\u2019s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}