Last year, after reading stories about a Senate investigation into Department of Homeland Security surveillance overreach, I decided to glance at the probe to see if the story could be advanced through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Sure enough, I thought, there was an opportunity. While DHS officials at “Fusion Centers” were sometimes showing restraint by declining to file reports on protected speech — though the material should have not been retained to begin with, the Senate's investigators concluded — the report revealed a glimpse into an even wider dragnet, a key watchlist that has been rather problematic for both law-abiding citizens and law enforcement alike.
As the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations detailed:
One [DHS fusion center] draft reported on a list of reading suggestions by a Muslim community group, “Ten Book Recommendations for Every Muslim.” The report noted that four of the titles were authored by individuals with records in a U.S. intelligence counterterrorism database, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE).
The analysis continues,
"We cannot report on books and other writings of TIDE matches simply because they are TIDE matches,” wrote a CR/CL reviewer on that draft. “The writings themselves are protected by the First Amendment unless you can establish that something in the writing indicates planning or advocates violent or other criminal activity.” The report was not published.
Essentially, an overzealous DHS beat cop wanted to draft a report on authors read by the "Evil Doers" — with information that was likely gathered from an unsavory informant desperate to expunge a criminal record — because some authors of Islamic texts were previously flagged for surveillance by the federales.
But look past the actual reporting, or lack thereof — here, we could get a glimpse at TIDE if the Feds agreed to release the list circulated by this book club that probably isn't an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell but budget projections for Fiscal Year 2011 are due so let's just say it is.
Shouldn't Americans have the right to know which influential thinkers are considered possible enemies of the state? They might want to avoid buying their books. They aren't advocating violence in these writings, but have they ever?
Or do these authors merely advocate peaceful resistance to U.S. militarism? Do they argue that Israel was built on stolen land? This could be considered a threat to guys whose salary depends, to a large degree, on keeping Americans on the verge of soiling themselves. Is this why we should be wary of these writers?
Or maybe they're just dicks. Do they roll up to parties with Natty Ice so they can drink your Sam Adams but still claim to have brought beer? Are they dubstep fans who monopolize playlists at dance parties? Don't these assholes have a greater negative impact on Americans on a daily basis? May as well chuck them on TIDE.
It could be all the reasons above, really. The fact is we don't know who is on this list or why — but almost a million people are on it.
This can be rather problematic for non-violent folk who earn the distinction – they often aren't aware of honor until they try to board a plane. TIDE, according to the National Counterterrorism Center “is the U.S. Government’s (USG) central repository of information on international terrorist identities.” It “supports the USG’s various terrorist screening systems or 'watchlists' and the US Intelligence Community’s overall counterterrorism mission,” and “supports screening processes to detect and interdict known and suspected terrorists at home and abroad – for example, the Transportation Security Administration’s 'No Fly' list and the Department of State’s visa database, among others.”
As such, TIDE has resulted in the harassment of many people more liable to have been wounded by a bomb – be it an insurgent IED or a missile launched from an American warship. As of December 2012, it contained over 875,000 persons, “most containing multiple minor spelling variations of their names,” according to the NCTC. Those whose travel plans have been complicated by TIDE include a Malaysian scholar who obtained her PhD at Stanford. More infamously, Malalai Joya, an Afghan parliamentarian, women's rights activist and critic of U.S. policy, was denied a visa by the State Department in 2011 — IDE might have played a role here (was her memoir on the Muslim community group's list?).
The visa ban was eventually rescinded after international pressure. Most recently, Saddiq Long, a U.S. citizen — and veteran, for fuck's sake — living in Qatar was denied entry into the U.S. in November after attempting to visit his sick mother in Oklahoma. He was removed from the No Fly list (probably because Glenn Greenwald covered his story) but was subsequently denied the right to board a plane to return home to his family in February. No specific reason was given, and he was unable to appeal the decision. In the 21st century, in which air travel is a prerequisite to enjoying the full rights of citizenship, this is an outrageous abuse of human rights.
Nor are spurious additions to the list something that only civil libertarians should worry about. A deluge of information hampers actual counter-terrorism, even if trumping up fears about who is an extremist and why is an effective way for law enforcement officials to coax legislators into allocating more resources to their Big Swingin' Dick Brigade. Boston marathon bomber mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev, for example, was on the list “on the request of the CIA.” He was interviewed by the FBI in 2011, too. Could it be that keeping people like Long on the list alongside people like Tsarnaev gets in the way of law enforcement? How many people on TIDE and other lists do the FBI talk to on a regular basis? Or would the government prefer to consider a list the size of Washington D.C. proper to contain legitimate information on potential terrorists?
Either way, I wanted to find out more about this list. Last autumn, I filed a FOIA request with DHS knowing, thanks to the Senate investigation, that they had it (I would have just asked the Senate committee, but Congress isn't subject to FOIA).
Here is their response: two pages of redactions justified by exemption (b)(5): the Deliberative Process privilege.
Top of the second and final page of the FOIA response. Like the first page (displayed above), the sheet is redacted in its entirety.
Basically, the Federal government can't tell us why those on the reading list are considered possible terrorists, because such a release would "discourage the expression of candid opinions and inhibit the free and frank exchange of information among agency personnel."
* * *
Sam Knight is a freelance journalist currently living in Washington DC. Follow him on Twitter (@samknight1) – tweet at him if you can help appeal the DHS decision.