Over 40 percent of terrorist watchlist names have no terrorist group affiliation

Evidence

The overwhelming majority of those who are on these lists are innocent people, many of whom are American citizens and have no ties to terrorism. According to an article published in the Intercept, “Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of ‘known or suspected terrorists’ that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having ‘no recognized terrorist group affiliation’” (Scahill and Devereaux 2014). — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 55

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s map of how nominally neutral databases become racialized; mirrors COINTELPRO-era list inflation.