唐纳德·特朗普总统。秘密的新监视名单让政府无需获得授权就可以监视美国人。
特朗普政府创建了一个新的、广泛的国家安全观察名单，这是自9/11以来首次将与恐怖主义没有关联的美国人包括在内。新的观察名单是通过一项机密的司法部长命令授权的，于2017年发布，预计将增长到100多万个名字。它还允许政府在没有搜查令的情况下跟踪和监控美国人，即使没有证据表明他们违法。
尽管两部独立的法律要求政府宣布新的美国人数据收集系统，但没有人承认扩大的观察名单。
列入新观察名单的标准要求个人与“跨国”犯罪组织有关联，包括实际上是外国政府实体的掩护组织。跨国犯罪组织不仅包括贩毒集团、犯罪辛迪加和帮派，还包括政治团体，如民族主义政党和信息活动分子。当个人涉嫌腐败、洗钱、电脑黑客、操纵股市、医疗欺诈、甚至野生动物贩运时，他们可以被列入观察名单。
熟悉新观察名单的政府官员表示，该名单最终将包括数万名美国人，覆盖美国100多个城市。
新的跨国有组织犯罪观察名单是以恐怖分子甄别数据库为模式的，该数据库是在2001年9月11日袭击后作为恐怖分子嫌疑人的单一存放处而建立的。这些年来，监视名单已经增加到包括120万人，其中大约有6000名美国人被联邦调查局与国内恐怖主义联系在一起。
与恐怖分子监视名单一样，新的反恐委员会监视名单授权各机构收集信息，即使没有犯罪或犯罪意图的证据。这一权力规避了正当程序、法律平等保护和《宪法》规定的结社自由的刑事司法要求。
国家安全官员表示，尽管政府仍在讨论新观察名单的全部范围，但他们担心实施恐怖主义标准会危及美国人的公民自由和隐私权。
“当我们把美国人列入名单时，最好有一个很好的调查理由，证明他们犯了罪。否则，我认为这是违反宪法的，”弗兰克·泰勒说，他是一名退休的空军准将和职业执法人员。泰勒曾在布什和奥巴马政府中担任高级领导职务，最近是国土安全部的情报主管。
新闻周刊对TOC观察名单的调查是基于对长达10年的数百页政府文件的广泛审查，以及对十多名现任和前任高级情报和国家安全官员的采访。很少有人知道目标为本课程的观察名单或其扩大的范围，甚至在国家安全机构的一些最高级别。六名跨多个部门的高级官员根本不知道目标为本课程观察名单的存在，直到新闻周刊联系了他们。联邦调查局和国家情报局长办公室拒绝回答关于新系统的问题。
跨国有组织犯罪观察名单可以追溯到2010年国家情报评估得出结论认为技选委员会是“松散的、无定形的、适应性强的”网络。他们是维护全球黑市的权力人物，黑市出售毒品、向恐怖分子提供资金、交易武器、偷运人口和贿赂公职人员。
国家情报委员会的前顾问马修·布伦斯(Mathew Burrows)参与了这一评估，他说，当时，“反恐正在把房间里的氧气都带走。”官员们担心，他们过于狭隘地关注外国恐怖组织，忽视了对他们所认为的“新兴”威胁的同等保护。
由此产生的情报报告将跨国有组织犯罪描述为每年1万亿美元的地下经济，对美国国家安全构成威胁。作为回应，奥巴马总统要求国家安全机构拿出一个政府范围的计划来打击他们。由此产生的《打击跨国有组织犯罪国家战略》于2011年7月发布，旨在建立一个全面的信息共享系统，以识别技术选择委员会的“成员和同伙”
这实际上把反恐中心从执法领域转移到了反恐领域，在执法领域，警察在犯罪发生后进行调查，并根据证据追捕罪犯，而在反恐领域，目标是在犯罪嫌疑人发动袭击之前将其缉拿归案。采纳预防任务允许仅基于关联和怀疑的跟踪、监视和证据收集:这些标准超出了法院和《宪法》允许的范围。
“我认为我们犯了一个巨大的错误，没有更好地分享信息，”艾米·波普(Amy Pope)说，她是奥巴马总统负责跨境安全的特别助理，也是领导跨部门政策委员会的官员，该委员会针对这一战略制定了目标为本课程观察名单。
在接下来的四年里，执法部门和情报部门的领导人为分享什么、新标准意味着什么以及由谁来控制而斗争。2015年8月6日，司法部长洛蕾塔·林奇签署了第3548号命令，授权联邦调查局的恐怖分子甄别中心“管理、传播、执行身份验证，并与技术选择委员会成员相关的管理职能。”
2015年7月13日，在墨西哥墨西哥城举行的新闻发布会上，墨西哥司法部长阿雷利·戈麦斯展示了墨西哥毒枭华金
TOC观察列表在2016年末悄然推出，为期6个月，有8000个名字。大多数是锡那罗亚贩毒集团的成员，该集团被认为是世界上最强大的跨国犯罪组织之一。该组织由华金·艾尔·查波·古斯曼领导，他在唐纳德·特朗普就职的前一天被引渡到美国。
随着唐纳德·特朗普入主白宫，观察名单发生了变化。新政府成立三天后，联邦调查局发布了对国家犯罪信息中心操作手册的技术修改，通知用户“已知或适当怀疑的恐怖分子文件”被重新命名为“已知或怀疑的恐怖分子文件”以公民自由为导向的奥巴马政府增加了“适当的怀疑”，删除“适当的怀疑”标志着一位官员所称的“身体语言”打开了一扇闸门。
几周后，特朗普总统公布了第13773号行政命令该法案要求所有联邦机构将拆除TOCs作为“高度优先事项”然后在10月4日，总统签署了国家安全总统备忘录7，它完全取代了“跨国犯罪”的语言，有了一个新的更广泛的焦点:国家安全威胁行为者。
NSPM-7将“被评估为对美国的安全、安保或国家利益构成威胁”的个人、组织、团体和网络定义为“网络威胁行为者、外国情报威胁行为者、军事威胁行为者、跨国犯罪行为者和武器扩散者”然而，行政当局表示，它设想“扩大...也包括其他威胁因素类别。”
“在智能手机和社交媒体出现之前，我们根本无法让当局保护美国及其公民的安全，因为这种技术进一步模糊了‘家庭游戏’和‘外出游戏’之间的界限，”时任代理国土安全部部长伊莱恩·杜克(Elaine Duke)表示。根据这一授权，国土安全部和司法部已经扩大了对MS-13的监视，这是一个起源于加利福尼亚州洛杉矶的跨国团伙，由成千上万的美国公民组成。
“我不会说对任何西班牙裔美国人来说这是一个完全开放的季节，”国土安全部的一名律师说，“但是之前关于关注美国公民可能与公民自由限制相冲突的担忧在新政府中消失了。”这位政府律师要求匿名，因为他没有被授权在记录上发言。他说，“跨国”联系现在只包括在萨尔瓦多有家庭，个人可以因为家庭联系而被列入新的观察名单，即使他们位于洛杉矶，没有其他跨国联系。
2019年5月，特朗普总统进一步签署了一项补充行政命令，将跨国犯罪的定义从“外国人”扩大到“包括一名或多名外国人的一群人”
监察长2018年的联邦调查局审计让人们感觉到这些类别变得多么广泛。该局表示，该局正积极打击从事“贩毒、洗钱、贩运人口、偷运外国人、公共腐败、贩运武器、勒索、绑架、开采和贩运自然资源、盗窃艺术和文物等文化财产以及保险和医疗欺诈”的“跨国犯罪网络”
去年五月，联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·瑞告诉国会，TOC还“针对股票市场欺诈和操纵”，从事“网络协助的银行欺诈和盗用”和“身份盗窃”国土安全部将“文件供应商、腐败官员、[和]律师”添加到跨国组织的“授权网络”列表中。
“内部威胁”构成了另一个类别:像切尔西·曼宁和爱德华·斯诺登这样的泄密者，或者研究武器或生物技术等敏感领域的企业科学家和大学教授。今年2月，美国联邦调查局局长瑞告诉众议院司法委员会，该局最近扩大了举措，“以关注与TCO跨国犯罪组织]合作的内部威胁”
到2020年初，新的观察名单只是名义上的TOC。
“这是情报分析师的噩梦，”前国土安全部反恐官员内特·斯奈德(Nate Snyder)谈到这种定义的松动以及恐怖主义和犯罪威胁的混淆时说。你不会像对待洪水或飓风一样对待这场流行病。同样的事情也可以说，如果你带着一个团伙，你现在把他们和一个恐怖组织联系在一起。一个不同于另一个。”
今天，从地方和部落警察到州和联邦机构，甚至一些外国联合政府，任何人都可以提名名单上的人。
监视名单不是十大通缉名单，也不是刑事调查案件档案，其中有法律断言某人犯了罪或参与了这样做的阴谋。这也不仅仅是情报收集的要求。这是一份“行动”清单，向执法机构和情报机构发出信号，表明个人感兴趣，在某些情况下只是为了被监视，在另一些情况下是为了被追捕。但是被列入观察名单并不一定意味着一个人做错了什么。例如，恐怖分子监视名单，即目录监视名单的基础，有一个合理的怀疑标准来增加人员，但它也有所谓的“秘密例外”2019年9月，美国地区法官安东尼·特伦加(Anthony Trenga)确认，“一个人被列入[恐怖分子观察名单]并不需要任何证据证明此人参与了犯罪活动、实施了犯罪或将在未来实施犯罪。”
美国司法部表示，TOC观察名单是“一个以行动者为中心的数据库”，消除了“间歇性和不完整的”监控，为“调查机会”和情报收集开辟了道路。用门外汉的话来说，当一个人旅行、银行或在社交媒体上发帖时，观察列表会引发一系列的警报。监视列表可以促使政府官员没收手机和笔记本电脑，寻找密码、同事和旅行模式。随后收集的信息成为所谓不当行为档案的一部分，这可能会限制一个人通过背景调查甚至试驾的能力。然后，官员们可以利用收集到的所有信息来证明监听一个人的电子邮件和电话是正当的。
“一旦你被列入监视名单，政府就有能力收集大量的信息，”退休的联邦调查局监督特别探员杰夫·丹尼克(Jeff Danik)说，他花了28年职业生涯的大部分时间追踪恐怖活动，包括在机密监视名单中心呆了几年。“这些数据是一枚炸弹，”他说。"你应该非常尊重它可能造成的损害。"
虽然收集外国人情报的权力实际上是不受限制的，但对“美国人”——即受宪法保护的美国公民和绿卡持有者——来说，情况并非如此。虽然TOC监视列表跟踪跨国帮派成员和国际犯罪集团成员，但它也监视着美国人，在日益全球化的世界中，美国人仅仅因为与其他国家的人交谈就被视为跨国罪犯。
一名高级职业情报官员告诉记者新闻周刊特朗普政府最近发布了一份机密指南，详细说明了管理目标委员会观察名单的协议。这位官员表示，这些新政策，加上“一个或多个外国人”的标准，可能会导致成千上万的美国人被列入观察名单——许多人只是因为访问或频繁访问某些外国网站和社交媒体中心而被列入观察名单。
特朗普政府从未宣布建立新的目标为本课程观察名单，也没有宣布新的政府体系已经建立，让美国人接受政府审查。两条定律1974年隐私法还有电子政务法要求联邦政府向公众通报包含美国人个人信息的新的和变更的记录系统，并评估其对公民自由的潜在影响。然而，司法部还没有披露在联邦登记册中存在技术选择委员会的观察名单，这是任何系统投入运行前“至少30天”所要求的。也没有像法律规定的那样，公布TOC观察名单的“隐私影响评估”。A2019年11月透明度报告美国国土安全部公民权利和公民自由办公室称TOC观察名单是一个正在开发的“试点”，并不承认它已经在运行。
新闻周刊给司法部隐私办公室的电话和电子邮件以及FOIA的请求都没有得到回应，给政府隐私和公民自由监督委员会的信息也没有得到回应，该委员会目前正在审核恐怖分子的监视名单。
“政府掌握了大量的信息，如果不受这些原则的约束，这些信息可能会被滥用，”波普说。“我认为他们采用的标准对我来说完全是歧视性的。因为这是行政部门，他们在被阻止之前可能会造成很大的损害。”
甚至在新的目录监视列表创建之前，恐怖分子“监视列表企业”就面临法律挑战。批评者称，它的秘密性质对集会、行动甚至言论自由有着直接而令人不寒而栗的影响。一群在2016年起诉联邦政府的美国穆斯林说，由于监视名单的原因，他们被用枪铐着，被拘留和审问了几个小时，同时他们的数字账户被搜查。
2001年9月11日，第一座世界贸易中心大楼倒塌后，一名男子站在废墟中大声询问是否有人需要帮助
去年9月，美国地区法官特伦加裁定，恐怖分子甄别数据库侵犯了美国宪法赋予的正当程序权。他写道，监视名单“可疑恐怖分子”是“在很大程度上基于主观判断”，他命令政府修改其政策，给人们一个公平的机会，挑战他们在数据库中的位置，并被删除。政府已对该裁决提出上诉。
几位前政府高级官员告诉记者新闻周刊他们对曾经帮助领导的机构失去了信任，并表示担心，如果没有足够的保障措施，监视名单可能会因政治或偏见而被滥用于针对无辜者。
新闻周刊与国会办公室直接接触，这些办公室都拒绝置评。然而，国会的声音对特朗普政府中审计员的可靠性和独立性提出了质疑。两院的椅子国土安全委员会还有政府监督和改革委员会最近有人担心，行政部门监察长“未能对[国土安全部进行基本监督”，国土安全部是根据监视名单制度提供和收集情报的主要机构之一。
“整理国家安全敌人的名单给我的印象就像希特勒在20世纪30年代在德国做的一样，或者斯大林在30年代、40年代和50年代在俄罗斯做的一样，”前国土安全部情报主管泰勒将军在提到美国公民时说当你需要一把短剑时，那只不过是试着用一把大锤。"
TRUMP'S SECRET NEW WATCHLIST LETS HIS ADMINISTRATION TRACK AMERICANS WITHOUT NEEDING A WARRANT
President Donald Trump. Secret new watchlist lets government monitor Americans without getting a warrant.
The Trump administration has created a new and expansive national security watchlist that, for the first time since 9/11, includes Americans who have no connection to terrorism. The new watchlist, authorized through a classified Attorney General order and launched in 2017, is expected to grow to well over one million names. It also allows the government to track and monitor Americans without a warrant, even when there is no evidence they're breaking the law.
And while two separate laws require the government to announce new systems of data collection of Americans, there has been no acknowledgement of the expanded watchlist.
The criteria to be placed on the new watchlist demands that an individual be associated with "transnational" criminal organizations, including front organizations that are actually foreign government entities. Transnational criminal organizations include not just drug cartels, crime syndicates and gangs, but also political groups such as nationalist parties and information activists. Individuals can be watchlisted when they are suspected of corruption, money laundering, computer hacking, stock market manipulation, health care fraud, even wildlife trafficking.
Government officials familiar with the new watchlist say that it will eventually include tens of thousands of Americans, reaching into more than a hundred cities across the United States.
The new Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) watchlist is modeled after the Terrorist Screening Database, which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks as a single repository of terrorist suspects. Over the years, that watchlist has grown to include 1.2 million people, among whom are roughly 6,000 Americans that the FBI associates with domestic terrorism.
Like the terrorist watchlist, the new TOC watchlist authorizes agencies to collect information even when there is no evidence of a crime or intent to commit a crime. This authority circumvents criminal justice requirements for due process, equal protection under the law, and freedom of association under the Constitution.
National security officials say that though the government is still debating the full scope of the new watchlist, they are concerned that applying the terrorism standard imperils Americans' civil liberties and privacy rights.
"When we put Americans on that list, there damn well better be a good reason investigatively that they committed a criminal act. Otherwise, I think that's unconstitutional," says Frank Taylor, a retired Air Force Brig. General and career law enforcement professional. Taylor held senior leadership positions under both the Bush and Obama administrations, most recently as head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security.
Newsweek's investigation into the TOC watchlist is based on an extensive review of hundreds of pages of government documents spanning a decade and interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior intelligence and national security officials. Few people know about the TOC watchlist or its expansive scope, even at some of the highest levels of the national security establishment. Half a dozen senior officials across multiple departments were unaware that a TOC watchlist existed at all until Newsweekcontacted them. The FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to answer questions about the new system.
The Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) watchlist can trace its origins to a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that TOCs were "loose, amorphous, highly adaptable" networks. They were the power players maintaining the global black market that sold drugs, provided money to terrorists, traded weapons, smuggled people across borders and bribed public officials.
At the time, says Mathew Burrows, a former advisor to the National Intelligence Council who worked on the estimate, "counter-terrorism was taking all the oxygen out of the room." Officials worried that they were so narrowly focused on Foreign Terrorist Organizations, they were neglecting to equally protect against what they considered "emerging" threats.
The resulting intelligence report described transnational organized crime as a trillion dollar a year underground economy that posed a threat to U.S. national security. In reaction, President Obama tasked the national security agencies to come up with a government-wide plan to fight them. The resulting National Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime released in July 2011 directed the creation of a comprehensive information sharing system that could identify TOC "members and associates."
This effectively shifted TOCs from the world of law enforcement, where police investigate crimes after they occur and pursue criminals based on evidence, to counter-terrorism, where the objective is to hunt down suspects before they strike. Adopting the prevention mandate allowed tracking, surveillance and the gathering of evidence based only on associations and suspicion: standards that exceeded what the courts—and the Constitution—otherwise allowed.
"I thought we were making a huge mistake to not better share information," says Amy Pope, Special Assistant to President Obama for Transborder Security and the official who led the Interagency Policy Committee that devised the TOC watchlist in response to the strategy.
For the next four years, law enforcement and intelligence community leaders fought over what to share, what the new standard meant and who was going be in control. On August 6, 2015, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed Order No. 3548, granting the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center "the authority to manage, disseminate, perform identity verification, and encounter management functions regarding TOC Actors."
Mexico's Attorney General Arely Gomez shows a picture of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman during a press conference in Mexico City, Mexico, on July 13, 2015.
TOC watchlisting quietly launched in late 2016 under a six-month pilot with 8,000 names. Most were members of the Sinaloa drug cartel, considered one of most powerful transnational criminal organizations in the world. It was headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, who was extradited to the United States the day before Donald Trump's inauguration.
With Donald Trump's ascent to the White House, watchlisting changed. Three days into the new administration, the FBI issued a technical modification to the National Crime Information Center Operating Manual, notifying users that the "Known or Appropriately Suspected Terrorist File" was being renamed the "Known or Suspected Terrorist File." Appropriately Suspected had been added by the civil liberties-oriented Obama administration and its deletion signaled what one official labels "body language" that opened a floodgate.
Weeks later, President Trump unveiled Executive Order 13773, which mandated all federal agencies to make dismantling TOCs a "high priority." Then on October 4, the president signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which supplanted "transnational crime" language altogether with a new and broader focus: national security threat actors (NSTAs).
NSPM-7 defined the individuals, organizations, groups and networks "assessed to be a threat to the safety, security, or national interests of the United States" to include "cyber threat actors, foreign intelligence threat actors, military threat actors, transnational criminal actors, and weapons proliferators." However, the administration stated that it envisioned "an expansion ... to also include additional threat actor categories, as appropriate."
"We simply cannot keep the United States and its citizens secure with authorities drafted before smartphones and social media, as such technology has further blurred the line between the 'home game' and 'away game'," then-Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said. Under this mandate, the Homeland Security and Justice Departments were already broadening their surveillance of MS-13, the transnational gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, one made up of thousands of American citizens.
"I wouldn't say it was completely open season on any Hispanic American," an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security says, "but previous concerns that looking at American citizens might have run afoul of civilian liberties restrictions disappeared in the new administration." The government attorney, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record, says the "transnational" connection now includes merely having family in El Salvador, that individuals can be included on the new watchlist as "TOC actors" because of family connections, even if they are located in Los Angeles and have no other transnational link.
In May 2019, President Trump further signed an additional Executive Order that broadened the definition of a transnational criminal from "a foreign person" to "a group of persons that includes one or more foreign persons."
The Inspector General's 2018 FBI audit gives a sense of just how broad these categories became. It said the Bureau was actively working to take down "TOC networks" that engaged in "drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, alien smuggling, public corruption, weapons trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, exploitation and trafficking of natural resources, theft of cultural property such as art and antiquities, and insurance and health care frauds."
Last May, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that TOC's are additionally "targeting stock market fraud and manipulation," engaged in "cyber-facilitated bank fraud and embezzlement" and "identity theft." The Department of Homeland Security added "document vendors, corrupt officials, [and] attorneys" to the list of "enabling networks" of transnational organizations.
"Insider threats" make up yet another category: leakers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, or corporate scientists and university professors researching sensitive areas like weapons or biotechnology. In February, FBI Director Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that the bureau had recently expanded initiatives "to focus on insider threats partnering with TCO [transnational criminal organization] actors."
By early 2020, the new watchlist was TOC in name only.
"It's an intelligence analyst's nightmare," says Nate Snyder, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official, about this loosening of definitions and conflation of terrorist and criminal threats. You wouldn't "treat this pandemic like you would a flood or a hurricane. The same thing could be said if you're taking a gang and you're now affiliating them with a terrorist organization. One is not like the other."
Today, anyone from local and tribal police to state and federal agencies, and even some allied foreign governments, can nominate people to the list.
A watchlist is not a top-ten wanted list nor is it a criminal investigation case file where there is legal predicate that a person has committed a crime or is engaged in a conspiracy to do so. Neither is it merely an intelligence collection requirement. It is an "action" list, signaling to both law enforcement and intelligence agencies that individuals are of interest, in some cases merely to be watched, and in others, to be hunted down. But being on a watchlist doesn't necessarily mean a person has done anything wrong. The terrorist watchlist, for example, upon which the TOC watchlist is based, has a reasonable-suspicion standard to add people, but it also has what's called a "secret exception." In September 2019, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga affirmed that "an individual's placement into the [terrorist watchlist] does not require any evidence that the person engaged in criminal activity, committed a crime, or will commit a crime in the future."
The Department of Justice says that the TOC watchlist is "an actor centered database" that eliminates "intermittent and incomplete" surveillance, opening the way for "investigative opportunities" and intelligence collection. In layman's terms, watchlisting sets off a series of alarms when a person travels, banks, or posts on social media. Watchlisting can prompt government officials to confiscate cellphones and laptops, seeking out passwords, associates and travel patterns. Information collected then becomes part of a dossier of purported wrongdoing that can limit a person's ability to pass a background check and even test-drive a car. And officials can then use all of what has been collected to justify spying on a person's emails and phone calls.
"Once you're on the watchlist, the government has the ability to collect tremendous amounts of information," says retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Danik, who spent most of his 28-year career tracking terrorist activity, including several years inside the classified watchlisting hub. "This data is a bomb," he says. "You should have great respect for the damage that it can do."
While the authority to collect intelligence on foreigners is virtually unrestricted, the same is not true for "U.S. persons"—that is, American citizens and green card holders who are protected by the Constitution. While the TOC watchlist tracks members of transnational gangs and people affiliated with international crime syndicates, it also keeps tabs on Americans who, in an increasingly globalized world, are deemed transnational criminals merely because they talk to people in other countries.
A senior career intelligence official told Newsweek that the Trump administration recently released classified guidance that details the protocols governing the TOC watchlist. The official says those new policies, coupled with the "one or more foreign persons" criteria, could result in tens of thousands of Americans being watchlisted—many added simply because they visit or frequent certain foreign websites and social media hubs.
The Trump administration never announced the creation of the new TOC watchlist, or the fact that a new government system has been created that subjects U.S. persons to government scrutiny. Two laws, the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002, require the federal government to notify the public of new and altered systems of records containing personal information on Americans and to assess its potential impact on civil liberties. And yet, there has been no Department of Justice disclosure of the existence of the TOC watchlist in the Federal Register, which was required "at least 30 days prior" to any system going live. Nor has a "Privacy Impact Assessment" for the TOC watchlist been published, as the law instructs. A November 2019 transparency report by the Homeland Security Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Office refers to the TOC watchlist as a "pilot" under development with no acknowledgement that it's already operational.
Newsweek's calls and emails to the Justice Department's Privacy Office and FOIA requests have gone unanswered, as did messages to the government's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which is currently auditing the terrorist watchlist.
"There's an incredible amount of information the government holds and if it's not bound by these kinds of principles, it can be misused," Pope says. "I think that they're applying standards that, to me, are entirely discriminatory. And because it is the Executive Branch, they could do a lot of damage before they're stopped."
Even before the new TOC watchlist was created, the terrorist "watchlisting enterprise" faced legal challenges. Critics claim that its secret quality has a direct and chilling effect on freedom of assembly, movement and even speech. A group of Muslim Americans, who sued the federal government in 2016, say that because of the watchlist, they have been handcuffed at gunpoint, detained and interrogated for hours while having their digital accounts searched.
A man stands in the rubble and calls out asking if anyone needs help after the collapse of the first World Trade Center Tower on September 11, 2001
Last September, U.S. District Judge Trenga ruled that the Terrorist Screening Database violated Americans' Constitutional right to due process. Writing that watchlisting "suspected terrorists" was "based to a large extent on subjective judgments," he ordered that the government revise its policy to give people a fair chance to challenge their placement in the database and get taken out. The government has appealed that ruling.
Several former senior government officials told Newsweek that they have lost trust in the institutions they once helped lead and expressed concern that, without adequate safeguards, watchlisting could be misused to target innocent people because of politics or prejudice.
Newsweek reached out to Congressional offices with direct oversight roles, all of whom declined to comment. However, congressional voices have called into question the reliability and independence of auditors in the Trump administration. The chairs of both the House Homeland Security Committee and the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform recently raised concerns that Executive Branch Inspectors General have been "failing to provide basic oversight of [the Department of Homeland Security]," one of the main agencies that contributes to and collects intelligence based on the watchlisting system.
"Compiling lists of national security enemies strikes me as what Hitler did in Germany in the 1930s or what Stalin did in Russia in the '30s, '40s and '50s," says General Taylor, the former head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, referring to American citizens. "That is nothing more than trying to take a sledgehammer when you need a stiletto."
