Watch Lists In Post-Constitutional AmericaHow Ray McGovern Ended Up On A ‘BOLO’ List, Though He Engaged In No Criminal Activity, And What It Took To Remove Him From The List

Peter van Buren at FDL has the story; here's an excerpt from the middle to familiarize you with the basic concepts and the specifics of McGovern's case, how he ended up on a BOLO (Be On the Look Out) list, and how he got himself removed from it:

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Watch Lists in Post-Constitutional America

McGovern’s case has many touch points to the general state of affairs of post-9/11 government watchlists, such as No-Fly.

Ray McGovern
(NOTE: hair, beard vary
greatly across photos)

The first is that it is anonymous interests, within a vast array of government agencies, that put you on some list. You may not know what you did to be “nominated,” and you may not even know you are on a list until you are denied boarding or stopped and frisked at a public event. Placement on some watchlist is done without regard to– and often in overt conflict with– your Constitutional rights. Placement on a list rarely has anything to do with having committed any actual crime; it is based on the government’s supposition that you are a potential threat, that you may commit a crime despite there being no evidence that you are planning one.

Once you are on one watchlist, your name proliferates onto other lists. Getting access to the information you need to fight back is not easy, and typically requires legal help and a Freedom of Information Act struggle just to get the information you need to go forward. The government will fight your efforts, and require you to go through a lengthy and potentially expensive court battle.

We’ll address the irony that the government uses taxpaying citizens’ money to defend itself when it violates the Constitutional rights of taxpaying citizens another time.

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The concept alone is enough to curl your hair: anonymous lists, compiled in secret, involving Americans who are not accused of any crime except that of offending someone in a powerful position, but subjected to surveillance as if they were the most heinous criminal... indeed, traitor.

How much worse can it get? How many of us are on such lists for what many of us consider ordinary political activity and/or speech? The short answer: we may never know.

'The Intercept' Continues Publishing The Results Of Their Genuine Journalism

This time it's Dan Novack, writing about "DOJ Still Ducking Scrutiny After Misleading Supreme Court on Surveillance" — it's getting to the point that a poor persecuted DOJ hack can't hide anything from the new online journalists. Oh, for the old days of ABC and Fox, when they could do anything and depend on its not being reported... [/sarcasm]

Pure Speculation — Come On, Join In!

I just ran across this article on FDL:

NSA Successfully Figured Out How to Tap Into VISA’s ‘Complex Transaction Network’
By: Kevin Gosztola Sunday September 15, 2013 12:12 pm

While The Guardian has published the most scoops from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, has posted its share of revelations from documents Snowden took with him from the NSA. The latest story shows the NSA managed to figure out how to infiltrate and search records of international VISA credit card customers.

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This is just one of who knows how many similar incidents (hundreds? thousands?) perpetrated by the NSA. In each case, there appears to have been effectively no supervision by any of the three branches of the American government, no attempt to align the results with the official policy goals established by the three branches, no warrants authorizing the actions, no attempt even to inform relevant congressional committees (let alone the public)... in other words, in these actions, the NSA seems to have acted as a fourth, wholly independent branch of government.

What if it actually is? Is there any precedent for a government agency secretly undertaking to act, unauthorized and unsupervised, on behalf of... or in place of... the duly constituted government?

How about Hoover's FBI?

Your speculations welcome.

America's Secret Enemies

Back in college I was in a square dance club. (This was Rice University. Yes, they had a square dance club; trot out all the Rice stereotypes, because they all applied. Well, all except the TRG stereotype; many of the young ladies were beautiful.)

In the square dance club was a fellow named Doug. Doug's whole raison d'être was ROTC. (Trot out all the ROTC stereotypes; they, too, all applied.) Doug usually attended dances in his ROTC uniform. Doug was always trying to impress the ladies with his supposed involvement in secret military activities. (This was Rice University. The ladies weren't fooled for even a moment.)

In breaks between dances, Doug had a pattern. He would begin a story apparently about some military matter, a story designed to provoke a polite listener into asking a polite question allowing Doug to pursue the story. Doug would go to great lengths to induce his listener to ask such a question. When the listener asked (if for no other reason than to get Doug to shut up), Doug would stiffen his spine, assume a very dark, serious expression on his face, and say, barely audibly, scarcely parting his lips,

I CAN'T TELL YOU THAT.

It was very important to Doug to appear to be very important.

Which brings me at long last to the substance of this post. The indefatigable emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) has a lot to say On the Growing Fight Against America’s Secret Enemies. Wheeler begins by quoting Cora Currier at Pro Publica:

At a hearing in May, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked the Defense Department to provide him with a current list of Al Qaeda affiliates.

The Pentagon responded – but Levin’s office told ProPublica they aren’t allowed to share it. Kathleen Long, a spokeswoman for Levin, would say only that the department’s “answer included the information requested.”

A Pentagon spokesman told ProPublica that revealing such a list could cause “serious damage to national security.”

Right: "WE CAN'T TELL YOU THAT."

Sometimes even members of Congress... e.g., Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence... have been told they may not have the list of enemies. Wyden finally obtained access to the list in February. And he was not, and as far as I know is not, able to tell the public.

This poses a real dilemma. It is a treasonable act for an American citizen to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. But who, exactly, must we not aid? Sorry... "WE CAN'T TELL YOU THAT."

Square-dancing ROTC Doug must be in hog heaven (Doug heaven?) these days.

As to how you and I can avoid giving aid and comfort to America's enemies, without official information on just who those enemies are?

You can't. You're on your own. "WE CAN'T TELL YOU THAT."

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UPDATE: Wheeler has also recently written on a related topic, Candidate Obama’s Tribute to Whistleblowers Disappears Two Days after First Snowden Revelations. It seems Obama's past remarks about the virtues of whistleblowers are silently disappearing from his web sites. I suppose the boot is on the other neck now.