Wired News's Ryan Singel published an excellent three-part story on watchlists, no-fly lists and similar enemies lists compiled by the Bush government. These are lists of people who are too dangerous to give a mortgage to, let on an airplane etc — or just people who need to be sat down in a little room and questions for hours on end, every time they get on an airplane — but not so dangerous that they need arresting. No one will say who's on these lists, nor how you get on these lists, nor how you get off — but there are babies, US senators, and tiny, harmless old ladies on the list.
Kushigian is just a member of a growing club of American citizens whose lives have been touched by a slew of government watch lists proliferating with little oversight or redress mechanisms since the 9/11 attacks. Containing, by some estimates, hundreds of thousands of names submitted by dozens of agencies, the lists have not only snagged people like Kushigian — who wind up on them for mysterious reasons — they've also stigmatized and inconvenienced thousands of others whose names happen to be similar to an entry on the list.
Link to overview of watchlists,
Link to story about getting off watchlists,
Link to guide to America's watchlists
See also:
Babies on the no-fly list
TSA to revise no-fly list
Hacking the no-fly list is only bad if you like no-fly lists
Senator Kennedy on "no-fly" list
Canadian defense minister on US no-fly list?
No-Fly lists even dumber than suspected
Slate's Andy Bowers on Airport Security loopholes
Marine returning from Iraq is on no-fly terror list
TSA site pwned by identity thieves
Plane diverted over former Cat Stevens as security risk
John Gilmore vs. Ashcroft begins today
DHS runs anti-cyber-hippie wargame
Schneier: Forge Your Own Boarding Pass
