The ACLU is screaming that there are a million names on it and that we all must tremble in fear for our liberties due to the very existence of this list. John Stephenson at Pajamas Media notes the few good points the ACLU makes (notably that the list needs to be better managed – something, of course, the government freely acknowledges), and then goes on to indicate why the leftwing fear-mongering over this is a bit strained, to say the least:
I have given the ACLU credit on this issue; now I will give reasons to be skeptical. The claim that there are one million individuals on the terror watch list is a myth created through the exaggerated “estimations” of the ACLU. The truth is there are less than 400,000 individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list, and less than 50,000 on the no-fly and selectee lists.
Assumptions by the ACLU were probably based on a 2007 report claiming the estimate of 700,000 possible records on the watch list and growing by an average of 20,000 per month. Apparently, they didn’t take into account that the numbers do not necessarily represent actual individuals. A new “record” is created for every alias, date-of-birth, passport, spelling variations, and other identifying information for watch listed suspects. Furthermore, they did not take into account the name-by-name scrub that took place in 2007. Notably, 95 percent of those on the consolidated watch list are not American citizens and the majority are not even in the U.S. The shocking numbers the ACLU is broadcasting are simply inflated and dishonest figures.
Which conclusion anyone who thinks about it would come to – the operational word here being “think”, and thus we can see why the ACLU and the larger left is up in arms over this. The last time a lefty had a thought he was writing the Communist Manifesto at the British Museum…its been all downhill since then.
The tremors of fear the left tries to generate with this story is just part and parcel with the leftwing fairytale about President Bush – given that the left is living in an Alternate Universe where facts are subordinate to intentions, it is no surprise that each and every action of the Executive branch – no matter how routine – is cast in the darkest terms possible. Its also part of the leftist’s personal worldview – they see themselves as the pure-hearted battlers for truth, and as they are fighting for truth, anyone who opposes them must be fightig for lies…and liars, of course, will do anything to win, including spying on some obscure leftwing writer because he tells “the truth” about President Bush.
Just for fun, someone at DHS should slip into the list the names of a few liberal bloggers…so they can be found and really scare the bejabbers out of these professional hand-wringers. Heck, they believe a massive, nefarious, PNCA/Likud conspiracy is afoot, lets not disabuse them of the notion. We can have some fun with this, ya know?
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