Feds Still Shrugging People Onto Terrorist Watchlists Based On Hunches

from the you-might-be-a-terrorist-IF...-we-decide-you-might-be-a-terrorist-WHEN dept

Tue, Aug 18th 2015 10:35am — Tim Cushing

The US government's desire to keep terrorists off airplanes has resulted in heavily-populated "watchlists" -- lists short on due process and long on hunches.

The TSA, in particular, has embraced a mixture of borrowed ideas and junk science to staff airports with Behavioral Detection Officers, who attempt to keep terrorists from boarding planes by looking for any number of vague indicators. The end result is a billion-dollar program with the accuracy of a coin flip.

That's the physical version of the government's "predictive policing" security efforts. The same sort of vague quasi-science is used to populate its "no fly" list.

The U.S. government’s reliance on “predictive judgments” to deprive Americans of their constitutionally protected liberties is no fiction. It’s now central to the government’s defense of its no-fly list—a secretive watch list that bans people from flying to or from the United States or over American airspace—in a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Court filings show that the government is trying to predict whether people who have never been charged, let alone convicted, of any violent crime might nevertheless commit a violent terrorist act. Because the government predicts that our clients—all innocent U.S. citizens—might engage in violence at some unknown point in the future, it has grounded them indefinitely.

The court itself found the "no fly" list's redress processes (or lack thereof) to be unconstitutional, as it was basically unchallengeable by listed travelers. (And the only sure way for a person to discover they were on the "no fly" list was to buy a ticket to somewhere and attempt to board a plane.) According to the court, the list and its lack of proper redress was a perfect storm of civil liberties violations.

In summary, on this record the Court concludes the DHS TRIP process presently carries with it a high risk of erroneous deprivation in light of the low evidentiary standard required for placement on the No-Fly List together with the lack of a meaningful opportunity for individuals on the No-Fly List to provide exculpatory evidence in an effort to be taken off of the List.

While the DHS has slightly improved its redress process for those who find themselves on the list, it hasn't made any changes to its dubious selection standards. In fact, it's made this part of the process worse.

[T]he U.S. government launched its predictive judgment model without offering any evidence whatsoever about its accuracy, any scientific basis or methodology that might justify it, or the extent to which it results in errors.

In our case, we turned to two independent experts to evaluate the government’s predictive method: Marc Sageman, a former longtime intelligence community professional and forensic psychologist with expertise in terrorism research, and James Austin, an expert in risk assessment in the criminal justice system. Neither found any indication that the government’s predictive model even tries to use basic scientific methods to make and test its predictions.

As Sageman says, despite years of research, no one inside or outside the government has devised a model that can predict with any reliability if a person will commit an act of terrorism.

And there go any redress improvements. To get off the list, a person must convince the government he or she won't commit a criminal act that its "predictive model" has determined they might. At least in the FBI's terrorist "investigations," there's a minimum of intent and activity. In the case of would-be travelers like the ACLU's clients, there's nothing more than a predictive model spitting out probabilities.

In all likelihood, the predictive model used by the US government is based on more than faulty science. It's also based on faulty reasoning. As Doug Saunders at the Globe and Mail points out, analysts researching tracking and surveillance of would-be terrorists are finding the usual presumptions are mostly wrong.

Analysts began looking at the work of Paul Gill, a criminologist at the University College of London. In a highly influential 2014 paper titled “Bombing Alone: Tracing the Motivations and Antecedent Behaviours of Lone-Actor Terrorists,” Dr. Gill and his colleagues analyzed known terrorists not by what they thought or where they came from, but by what they did.

In the weeks before an attack, terrorists tend to change address (one in five) or adopt a new religion (40 per cent of Islamic terrorists and many right-wing terrorists did so). And they start talking about violence: 82 per cent told others about their grievance; almost seven in 10 told friends or family that they “intended to hurt others.”

A huge proportion had recently become unemployed, experienced a heightened level of stress or had family breakdowns. And most had done things that looked like planning – including contacting known violent groups.

Predictive modeling often looks like "thought policing," but that is of little use, apparently. There are other indicators that are far more telling, but these factors aren't being given proper weight by the models in use. Saunders notes that there has been a shift in modeling over the past couple of years, thanks to research from analysts like Paul Gill, but that shift in predictive factors hasn't slowed legislators from demanding even more futile, invasive "thought policing."

Unfortunately, governments, including Canada’s, are behind the curve: Just as their terrorism experts and security employees have abandoned policies which resemble the policing of thoughts, they're passing disturbing laws to make such obsolete practices easier.

The DHS may be using smarter modeling now, but it's not as though it's been examining its existing list to remove those who don't match the vague criteria. Instead, it's only responding to challenges made by travelers who find themselves on the list, and even then, it may still withhold information a listed flyer could use to challenge their status if the agency deems the release of such info a threat to national security. The nod to due process leads to an exchange of information and paperwork with the government, but there's nothing adversarial about the redress procedure. It's your word against theirs, with the agency -- not a court -- making the final determination as to whether a person can ever board an airplane.

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Filed Under: behavioral targeting, doj, hunch, junk science, no fly list, terrorist watchlist, tsa

34 Comments

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Baron von Robber, 18 Aug 2015 @ 11:00am

But Security Theater loves a captive audience.......literally.
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Sheogorath (profile), 18 Aug 2015 @ 11:02am

According to that ring chart, there's Al Qaeda in Iraq. Oh well, I'm pretty sure it's got absolutely nothing to do with the US being in Iraq and the billions of Iraq's money which disappeared during that period. *gets deafened and blinded by a flashbang just before rigid cuffs are slammed onto his wrists*
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2015 @ 11:16am

Re:
So do private prisons.
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Baron von Robber, 18 Aug 2015 @ 11:38am

Re: Re:
Clang-clang, ching-ching?

bad, i know.
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Anon, 18 Aug 2015 @ 11:53am

Of Course...
There's nothing "predictive" about the FBI practice of putting people on the No-Fly list for declining to become informants on their community. Except, maybe "I predict you'll regret not being a snitch..."
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Peter (profile), 18 Aug 2015 @ 12:29pm

# of terrorists in the world: estimated 5000
# of suspects on DHS watch lists: estimated 500000

Conclusion: Terrorist threat is history. Well done, US government.
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tqk (profile), 18 Aug 2015 @ 1:20pm

Insanity personified.
To get off the list, a person must convince the government he or she won't commit a criminal act that its "predictive model" has determined they might.

What kind of thickheaded tool politician signs off on laws that allow something like that to become possible, and how can it have taken 15 years (and counting) to realize it makes no sense whatsoever, doesn't help them either find or stop terrorists, and has needlessly turned over a quarter of a million people into pariahs in limboland? Just imagine the ongoing cost in dollars and time to make this happen, and this is in effect throughout the world's air travel system! Only a few months ago a woman managed to win her case forcing them to back off and fix the system. So, why haven't they backed off and fixed the system?!?

Yet, this is the same country that tries to convince the world of its high moral standards and that it's the world's beacon of freedom. Those in control of this situation should be charged under the espionage act. They're enabling bad guys far more than any whistleblower ever has by stuffing up the works the authorities use to protect its citizens. I'll be surprised if they ever catch one again if this's how they work. They're making the world look like a nation of fools for being willing to tolerate ritual abuse for no discernable reason.
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DigDug, 18 Aug 2015 @ 1:30pm

Karma's a bitch right?
Imagine if you will, a world where the FBI is grooming a TSA agent for a terrorist plot so that they can publicly uncover it to give them something to crow about to Congress. Then add to that, an undercover DEA officer who is trying to get a TSA agent to smuggle some drugs out of the country. Finally, stir in an NSA agent trying to get a TSA agent to carry a fake bomb onto a plane to see how well their teammates respond. Finally, word is leaked overseas to CIA operatives about a huge drug and counterfeit money shipment being brought in from Iran that was stolen from CIA operatives in that region.

All of these plots just happen to converge on a single airport, for a single flight, which just happens to be a stage that Homeland Security has chosen to host an interview with Geraldo Rivera to explain the truth behind the "Security Theater" misconception that they claim is erroneously rampant within the U.S.

By the time all the guns have been drawn by all of the alphabet agency's agents, and every alphabet organization has attempted arrested every other alphabet agency agents, hilarity will ensue and the world will know just how comical our nations security theater really is.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2015 @ 1:43pm

Re: Re:
...Security Theater loves a captive audience...

...So do private prisons...

Which one is easier to get out of?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2015 @ 2:12pm

There is a word for what their model is based it's call discrimination bigotry and old fashioned -we don't like the way you look or where your from and your name kinda sounds like a terrorists name.

In America our Government loves to sanction racism in all shapes and forms.
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Personanongrata, 18 Aug 2015 @ 2:28pm

Everyone is a Terrorist in DHS's Eyes: Radical or Sensible?
What should one expect from an entity (DHS) born of political expediency?

After all aren't the "authorities" and "officials" at DHS in the process of refurbishing a dilapidated insane asylum at cost of billions of taxpayer dollars?

Planned Homeland Security headquarters, long delayed and over budget, now in doubt

By Jerry Markon May 20, 2014

The construction of a massive new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security, billed as critical for national security and the revitalization of Southeast Washington, is running more than $1.5 billion over budget, is 11 years behind schedule and may never be completed, according to planning documents and federal officials.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the George W. Bush administration called for a new, centralized headquarters to strengthen the department’s ability to coordinate the fight against terrorism and respond to natural disasters. More than 50 historic buildings would be renovated and new ones erected on the grounds of St. Elizabeths, a onetime insane asylum with a panoramic view of the District.

These cretins at DHS are clearly incompetent and they should be pulled back from feeding at the public trough of taxpayer funded slop and dragged off into court to answer for the mal/mis/ and nonfeasance writ large throughout DHS's entire criminal hierarchy.

The rubber stamp convention once known as the US Congress should have never have funded DHS. In a just world the rubber stamp convention would defund DHS.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/planned-homeland-security-headquarters-long-delayed-and-over- budget-now-in-doubt/2014/05/20/d0df2580-dc42-11e3-8009-71de85b9c527_story.html
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2015 @ 3:08pm

Why does this remind me of Minority Report?
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Stephen, 18 Aug 2015 @ 3:40pm

US is Terrorist Mecca
I see from the chart that that watchlist has over 600,000 people on it. Assuming those classifications to be mutually exclusive (ie someone in Hamas isn't also a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq), who'd have thought the Land of the Free (TM) was swarming with so many would-be terrorists?

That said, given the precision of all the other numbers on that list (eg 73,189 for Al Qaeda in Iraq), versus the comparative non-precision for that "no recognised terrorist group affiliation" one (all those zeroes in "280,000") suggests that the latter is more likely to be somebody's guesstimate rather than a number plucked from an official list.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2015 @ 6:09pm

Re: US is Terrorist Mecca
if you protest you are a terrorist, if you question your government you are a terrorist.

If you are not 100% subservient to those currently ruling the land, guess what that makes you to them.
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MrTroy (profile), 18 Aug 2015 @ 7:37pm

Not as accurate
The end result is a billion-dollar program with the accuracy of a coin flip.

Actually, the coin flip idea is provably better than the current situation. True random screening would be a significant improvement over inaccurate profiling.

This is of course assuming that the screening itself is worthwhile. YMMV.
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Blue, 18 Aug 2015 @ 9:28pm

Re:
Because the lead actor in both scenarios is bat-shit crazy?
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Justme, 18 Aug 2015 @ 11:56pm

Pseudoscience. . .
If 1 in 5 homicides are committed by people who wore blue shoe's in the week's before they killed, then Chicago could lower there homicide rate by 20 percent by lockup anyone wearing blue shoes for a period of one month.

Just plain common sense... eh!
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Sheogorath (profile), 19 Aug 2015 @ 12:21am

Re: Everyone is a Terrorist in DHS's Eyes: Radical or Sensible?
Well, it was 'everyone is a potential terrorist', but the DHS changed that literally as well as figuratively.
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You are being watched (profile), 19 Aug 2015 @ 1:01am

Re: Re: Re:
Prison
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Anonymous, 19 Aug 2015 @ 2:47am

Calling the process "predictive modelling" is a joke.

There is no mathematics. The leaks to The Intercept showed that it is just the random opinions of various government employees, made in secret, that determines who gets on. Maybe these are sometimes informed by the evidence-free opinions of self-proclaimed experts that are milking the terrorism farce in secret too. It is all just corruption. Nothing more.
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Seegras (profile), 19 Aug 2015 @ 2:56am

Re:
Yes.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140506/14033627137/how-many-terrorists-are-there-not-as-many -as-you-might-think.shtml
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Mariachi (profile), 19 Aug 2015 @ 3:50am

Re: Pseudoscience. . .
Lock up all blue-shod Chicagoans… With the Cubs in the running for a wildcard spot? I think they’d rather put up with the homicides.
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Dragdamar, 19 Aug 2015 @ 7:55am

Re: US is Terrorist Mecca
Part of that 280,000 are veterans who refuse to break their Oath to support and defend the Constitution against Domestic enemies of said Constitution. They are in that group because it looks bad to have a group called Enemies of Communism.
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Justme, 19 Aug 2015 @ 12:29pm

Re: Re: Pseudoscience. . .
Thanks, Mariachi.

I missed that one, so lets add it to our predictive model.

1. wearing blue shoe's in the weeks before committing homicide.
2. Being a professional athlete currently employed by major league team.

Keep it up and Chicago will be murder free by Christmas.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2015 @ 12:31pm

Re:
Dont forget the hundreds of thousands of deaths, the destruction of structures that destabalised the country, and generally, being the, INVADING force

Were're god damn heroes says the shallow man
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2015 @ 12:36pm

Re: Karma's a bitch right?
Lol!hahahahaha........imagine........hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2015 @ 12:38pm

Re:
While pretending to be the champions against it
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2015 @ 12:42pm

Re: Re: Everyone is a Terrorist in DHS's Eyes: Radical or Sensible?
Not if your on the "right" side (read:not a god damn political reference:read: right/wrong)

are you an evil bastard? Yes
Are you on our side?Yes

Result= "Good guy"

Imperial logic
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dadtaxi, 20 Aug 2015 @ 2:12am

api v software
Im not into programming but from reading the comments I've come to the understanding that patenting software is like Patenting a light switch design, but an API is like someone explaining how the switch is to be used

Or am I completely off base?
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Sheogorath (profile), 20 Aug 2015 @ 6:43am

Re: Re:
Oh, I didn't forget those atrocities, of course. Simply suggesting that the Halliburton (strike)theft(/strike) (strike)mismanagement(/strike) (strike)carelessness(/strike) Oh, fuck it. You know what I'm getting at.
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Sheogorath (profile), 20 Aug 2015 @ 6:46am

Re: api v software
You're completely on the wrong article, is what you are. :D
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John Fenderson (profile), 20 Aug 2015 @ 9:16am

Re: Everyone is a Terrorist in DHS's Eyes: Radical or Sensible?
"is running more than $1.5 billion over budget, is 11 years behind schedule and may never be completed"

Good!

"new ones erected on the grounds of St. Elizabeths, a onetime insane asylum"

On the other hand, that is so poetic and appropriate that I almost wish it would happen.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2015 @ 12:18pm

Re:
Actually, the number is at least 1.5 billion, for obvious reasons.

Not being sarcastic either.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2015 @ 12:20pm

Re: US is Terrorist Mecca
I repeat. There are at least 1.5 billion members of a decentralized global terrorist organization. That organization is called Islam and it's just one of many that need to be crushed wherever they lie.
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