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>There's an exhaustively detailed exploration of the standards for inclusion from page 33-49 which seems to me to be a set of lists (of activities, memberships in proscribed organizations, relationships with publicly sanctioned individuals etc. etc.) that trigger inclusion of the sort you are asking for.

Not really. pp. 47-49 contain examples, and prior to that, there is no specific behavior for "Reasonable Suspicion", which is probably the catchall for putting regular people on the watch list. The "Known Terrorist" and "Suspected Terrorist" sections contains specifics, but you don't have to be either of those to be put on the TSDB. You do have to have "Particularized Derogatory Information" which is specific information relating you to known terrorists or suspected terrorists. However this requirement is not expanded upon (that I can see).

The section that talks about how people should be removed from the list is short (less than a page), and basically says "we should look into it if someone complains". There is no mention of court procedures, there is a single point of contact (the DHS TRIP), and there are procedures that seem to basically amount to "look again". There is no requirement for disclosure of what put you on the list, and thus no means to effectively fight it.

I realize why you are complaining about people not doing a "cursory reading", but the fact is, a cursory reading can support as many false statements as just reading the article. It also gives a false sense of security in your beliefs. I can't be 100% sure of my statements above because I haven't read it fully, but I'm more sure of them than of your statements.

I realize why you are complaining about people not doing a "cursory reading", but the fact is, a cursory reading can support as many false statements as just reading the article.

Kind of makes you wonder what value the The Intercept is adding, doesn't it?

Maybe you should try looking at pages 37-42 which defines 13 different categories of suspected terrorists. I fail to see why you don't think this is relevant.

The section that talks about how people should be removed from the list is short (less than a page), and basically says "we should look into it if someone complains". There is no mention of court procedures [...]

That's because this is administrative guidance. The executive branch isn't part of the judicial branch. Agencies don't make rules about court procedure, the judiciary does. You're conflating two completely separate branches of government.

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Let me give you a super-quick civics lesson on US government, just so we're on the same page.

The Legislative branch consists of the House & Senate, aka Congress. The main thing it does is produce Statutory Law.

The Executive branch is headed by the President and includes all the various agencies of government. Agencies which are tasked by Congress with carrying out various tasks are required to promulgate rules and establish internal procedures (such as guidance in the implementation of the rules) for their own governance. These rules and procedures make up Administrative Law.

The Judicial branch resolves controversies between other branches of government, between the states and the federal government, and so on. Court decisions can cite statutory law, administrative law (if the case involves the operations of a government agency), common law (loosely, a set of legal traditions), and precedent established by higher courts. New precedents are sometimes referred to as judicial law.

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Now, statutory law might define which matters fall within the purview of the courts, and there's a great deal of judicial law addressing how legal disputes should proceed through the courts, but I wouldn't expect to find such things discussed in an agency guidance document. Obviously I'm only describing the very tip of the legal iceberg here, but there seem to be some very basic misconceptions in this thread about how the government functions.

>Maybe you should try looking at pages 37-42 which defines 13 different categories of suspected terrorists. I fail to see why you don't think this is relevant.

Because you don't have to be a Suspected Terrorist to be put in the TSDB. Which means that there are a whole host of things that aren't on those lists that can land you in the TSDB.

>You're conflating two completely separate branches of government.

No, I'm really not. "court" is not unique to the judicial branch, for example, courts-marshal are conducted within the military and not under the judicial branch.

>That's because this is administrative guidance.

Yes, which means that there should be better policies in place to keep this out of the judicial courts.

There are things that are not on those lists. They're eithe ron other lists, or must meet defined criteria which are subject to administrative review.

>You're conflating two completely separate branches of government. No, I'm really not. "court" is not unique to the judicial branch, for example, courts-marshal are conducted within the military and not under the judicial branch.

Well, that's bullshit. Sometimes you just have to own your mistakes, my friend.

I totally agree that the list itself should not be public.

However, in a criminal case, the accused has a sixth amendment right to know what they are charged with and to be confronted by the witnesses against them.

I don't see why this shouldn't be the case here.

Exactly. Being a suspected criminal that is never charged doesn't really strip you of any rights. Being on a terrorist watch list does.

It makes no sense to say that this document is based upon preserving the rights of the individual, while actively stripping those rights.

The idea that you can be added to a watchlist, but you can know why, or by whom, or how to get yourself removed, because you are preserving an individuals right seems counter intuitive to what those rights should be.

Unless, I'm misunderstanding you.

There is also a huge difference between being a suspected criminal and being a suspected terrorists, by how those definitions are actively managed. Suspected criminals are not barred from boarding planes, nor are they barred from banking, or housing, or otherwise. They are simply surveilled in a different capacity, until they are no longer suspected, or a case is developed to charge them. The process does have public components to preserve the rights of the individual.

And as to my cursory reading - you are correct. I didn't see those standards as detailed. I will review them. But my point remains, why not publicize the specifics of those placed on the watchlist, just like we publicize the charges against those in criminal and civil proceedings. How is this different?

It makes no sense to say that this document is based upon preserving the rights of the individual, while actively stripping those rights.

This conversation will go better if you don't start out with straw man arguments; I said no such thing.

The idea that you can be added to a watchlist, but you can know why, or by whom, or how to get yourself removed, because you are preserving an individuals right seems counter intuitive to what those rights should be.

...but not if you don't take time to actually read the document we're talking about, which includes sections on challenging inclusion and removal from lists. Absent a satisfactory administrative outcome, petitioners still have resort to the courts. This is consistent with the Constitutional design.

Courts have found that the Watchlist is not consistent with Constitutional design:

"The No Fly List, once distributed, clearly infringes upon a citizen's right to travel; and the Court cannot conclude based on the present record that there are no means less restrictive than an unqualified flight ban to adequately assure flight security, such as comprehensive preflight screening and searches. Second, the current record is inadequate to explain why judicial involvement before a person is placed on the No Fly List is either unnecessary or impractical, other than perhaps within the context of an emergency based on a specific, imminent threat that requires immediate action. Nor does the record conclusively establish that there cannot be any opportunity, either before or after an American citizen is placed on the No Fly List, to know of or challenge any of the information used to list him, even where such information could be summarized in a way that does not compromise sources or methods." [1]

[1] http://www.cair.com/images/pdf/Gulet-Order.pdf

The watchlist and the no-fly list are two different things, notwithstanding the degree to which they may overlap.

I'm glad someone took the time to read the document and understand that inclusion into the watchlist requires due diligence on the analyst's understanding of the derog (derogatory information), the fact checking about the person of interest's history to verify identity, and the okay of multiple people checking information along the path that the nomination takes. Mistakes on a nomination are immediately forwarded and corrected, and a nomination is constantly reevaluated for its validity to exist within the database. You or I are not showing up in that database without a very blatant nexus to terrorism.

The other posters within random comments are also conflating the watchlist with the no-fly list. I don't need to go into details about the differences, because their names say it all.

(Source: I built one of those data interchange legs, and worked a lot with the TSC)

I don't want to give the imrpession that I've read it in full detail or that I endorse everything in it. I only spent about half an hour with it, getting familiar with the content and reading a few sections in detail. I could point out many things that are flawed or problematic in it, but I do feel that arguments about its content need to be grounded in fact as regards what it actually says.