Time was being on the terrorist watch list and getting hassled at Airports (like Sen. Ted Kennedy) was a distinction. You could be a proud member of the Green party, a quaker or even a social activist nun when the US blocked you from boarding an aircraft for being a terrorist, even if the premise was fundamentally Stalinist. (Yes, Sen Ted Kennedy was on the list) After all, you were more likely being blocked for being a critic of the Bush administration as for being a shoe bomb wielding maniac. (maybe the list is the same as the list of citizens being eavesdropped on because, you know, their terrorists - like Martin Luther King was in the 1960s/)

At any rate, the cachet is gone now isn’t it. With the list nearing 1,000,000 it’s hardly enough to get you invited to a Tim Robbins-Susan Sarandon sit down anymore.

This of course proves the rule that as a Stalinist tactic gets increasingly Stalinist it just becomes more and more of a pain the ass.

There. They can call that Barrett’s Law.

Kidding aside, this is ridiculous. With 900,000 on the list you’d think they’d be catching more high value targets than, say, those lame wannabes in Florida. Unless, of course, the list really isn’t about “terrorists” at all.

Which is the whole point.

Full deatils of the ACLU’s claim here

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