Hypocrisy Big

war on terror. the domestic front. (apologies for posting the complete article. WSJ is a paid subscription service)

Post-Sept. 11 Watch List
Acquires Life of Its Own

FBI Listed People Wanted for Questioning,
But Out-of-Date Versions Dog the Innocent
By ANN DAVIS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


LAS VEGAS -- When a patron at the New York-New York casino plugged his frequent-player card into a slot machine one day this summer, something strange happened: An alert warned the casino`s surveillance officials that an associate of a suspected terrorist might be on the grounds.

How did a casino`s computer make such a connection? Shortly after Sept. 11, the FBI had entrusted a quickly developed watch list to scores of corporations around the country.

Departing from its usual practice of closely guarding such lists, the FBI circulated the names of hundreds of people it wanted to question. Counterterrorism officials gave the list to car-rental companies. Then FBI field agents and other officials circulated it to big banks, travel-reservations systems, firms that collect consumer data, as well as casino operators such as MGM Mirage, the owner of New York-New York. Additional recipients included businesses thought vulnerable to terrorist intrusion, including truckers, chemical companies and power-plant operators. It was the largest intelligence-sharing experiment the bureau has ever undertaken with the private sector.

A year later, the list has taken on a life of its own, with multiplying -- and error-filled -- versions being passed around like bootleg music. Some companies fed a version of the list into their own databases and now use it to screen job applicants and customers. A water-utilities trade association used the list ``in lieu of`` standard background checks, says the New Jersey group`s executive director.

The list included many people the FBI didn`t suspect but just wanted to talk to. Yet a version on SeguRed.com (www.segured.com), a South American security-oriented Web site that got a copy from a Venezuelan bank`s security officer, is headed: ``list of suspected terrorists sent by the FBI to financial institutions.`` (The site`s editor says he may change the heading.) Meanwhile, a supermarket trade group used a version of the list to try to check whether terrorists were raising funds through known shoplifting rings. The trade group won`t disclose results.

The FBI credits the effort, dubbed Project Lookout, with helping it rapidly find some people with relevant information in the crisis atmosphere right after the terror attacks. MGM Mirage says it has tipped off the FBI at least six times since beginning to track hotel and casino guests against the list.

The FBI and other investigative agencies -- which were criticized after Sept. 11 for not sharing their information enough -- are exploring new ways to do so, including mining corporate data to find suspects or spot suspicious activity. The Pentagon is developing technology it can use to sweep up personal data from commercial transactions around the world. ``Information sharing`` has become a buzzword. But one significant step in this direction, Project Lookout, is in many ways a study in how not to share intelligence.

The watch list shared with companies -- one part of the FBI`s massive counterterrorism database -- quickly became obsolete as the bureau worked its way through the names. The FBI`s counterterrorism division quietly stopped updating the list more than a year ago. But it never informed most of the companies that had received a copy. FBI headquarters doesn`t know who is still using the list because officials never kept track of who got it.

``We have now lost control of that list,`` says Art Cummings, head of the strategic analysis and warning section of the FBI`s counterterrorism division. ``We shouldn`t have had those problems.``

The bureau tried to cut off distribution after less than six weeks, partly from worry that suspects could too easily find out they had been tagged. Another concern has been misidentification, especially as multipart Middle Eastern names are degraded by typos when faxed and are fed into new databases.

Then there`s the problem of getting off the list. At first the FBI frequently removed names of people it had cleared. But issuing updated lists, which the FBI once did as often as four times a day, didn`t fix the older ones already in circulation. Three brothers in Texas named Atta -- long since exonerated, and no relation to the alleged lead hijacker -- are still trying to chase their names off copies of the list posted on Internet sites in at least five countries.

People who`ve asked the FBI for help getting off the bootleg lists say they`ve been told the bureau can`t do anything to correct outdated lists still floating around. The FBI`s Mr. Cummings says that ``the most we can control is our official dissemination of that list.`` Once it left the law-enforcement community, ``we have no jurisdiction to say, `If you disseminate this further, we will prosecute you.` ``

Despite the problems, Mr. Cummings and other proponents of information-sharing say the process should be improved, not abandoned. Software companies are rushing to help, trying to make information-sharing easier and more effective.

Systems Research & Development in Las Vegas is among those working on ways to make exchanging law-enforcement and corporate information a two-way street without compromising privacy. ``I believe there`s probably 10 to 50 companies in America that across them touch 80% to 90% of the entire country,`` says SRD founder Jeff Jonas, citing credit-card companies, banks, airlines, hotel chains and rental-car companies. ``There should be a protocol in place that corporate America could be plugged into that allows them to say, `We`d like to help,` `` he says.

But some officials at the U.S. Customs Service, the Office of Homeland Security and the FBI`s own Criminal Justice Information Services Division doubt the wisdom of circulating watch lists widely, and some say they didn`t even know about Project Lookout. Civil libertarians worry about enlisting companies to track innocent people for the government. Many companies say they need to be insulated from liability if they`re expected to share data on people with the government.

``It`s a tough, tough box to get into. You end up with legitimate concerns about moving into Orwell`s `1984,` `` says Henry Nocella, an official of Professional Security Bureau Ltd. in Nutley, N.J., and a former security director at Bestfoods. ``Yet you know there`s a need to collect and analyze information.``

Before Sept. 11, the government rarely revealed the names of terrorism suspects to companies. The exception was when it had a subpoena for specific information the government believed a company had about a person under investigation. But after the attacks, counterterrorism officials were concerned that members of terrorist cells could have slipped undetected into companies or communities. They feared that by the time they figured out where to direct subpoenas, the suspects could get away or even stage another attack.

Holed up in a ``strategic information and operations center`` in Washington, a small circle of FBI officials decided on Sept. 15, 2001, to put out a broad heads-up to state and local police and to trusted companies. ``We`re not playing games here. This was real life. We wanted as many people as possible to know this is who we wanted to talk to,`` says Steven Berry, an FBI spokesman.

Agents cast a wide net that, by its nature, included scores of innocent people. They started by using record searches and interviews to identify ``anybody who had contact`` with the 19 hijackers, Mr. Cummings recalls. Kevin Giblin, chief of the terrorist warning unit, decided that car-rental companies and local police should be the first outside of the airlines to get the list. One firm that received it, Ford Motor Co.`s Hertz unit, says it checked the list against its records and told the FBI of any matches, but then basically let the list lie dormant.

Calling All Truckers

Trade groups proved a quick way to spread the word. The FBI gave the list to the Transportation Department. It shared the names with the American Trucking Associations, which promptly e-mailed the list to nearly 3,000 trucking companies. The International Security Management Association, an elite group of executives at 350 companies, put the list on a password-protected part of its Web site, allowing members to scan it in private, members say.

On their own, FBI field agents shared the list with some chemical, drug, security-guard, gambling and power-plant companies, according to interviews with companies. The FBI`s Mr. Giblin says he hadn`t realized how extensively field agents distributed the list. But he says agents have considerable autonomy and are expected to keep close ties to companies in their area.

One field agent, Daron Borst of the FBI`s Las Vegas office, says, ``I do remember very distinctly the attitude of the country was, `Do something.` This was one way to get out there and develop an intelligence base. The other option was to sit in our offices and wait for the phones to ring.``

Mr. Giblin says that by Oct. 23 of 2001, he had notified police agencies that the bureau was no longer looking for the people on the watch list. But he made no arrangements to tell businesses. Indeed, Southern Co. didn`t receive its list until November 2001, when FBI field agents in Alabama asked the power company to ``see if any folks on the list ... had [customer] accounts,`` says a company spokeswoman, Laura Varn. The FBI declines to comment on the timing.

Mr. Giblin says the bureau stressed to recipients that the people named weren`t all suspects. ``This wasn`t a blacklist,`` he says.

Mark Deuitch landed on the list. A financier from Boone, N.C., he works on deals for Middle Eastern investors. On Sept. 11, he was scheduled to begin a flight that would take him to Washington -- using a ticket purchased by a Saudi business partner. After interviewing Mr. Deuitch, the FBI removed his name.

But even now, Mr. Deuitch says, nearly every time he does a Google search of the Internet, he finds another version of the list that still has his name on it. He says he is searched so often at airports that he has curtailed his flying. He says it once took him nearly two hours to get a rental car from Budget in Florida. Budget Group Inc. had no comment about Mr. Deuitch`s experience except to say it gave the FBI historical reservations data right after Sept. 11 and ``we have not been asked in recent months to assist the FBI in this manner.`` Mr. Deuitch says his worst fear is ``an unstable person getting hold of the name and wanting to take some sort of revenge.``

The Atta Brothers

The initial list also named Asem Atta. Mr. Atta, a Pakistani programmer who once worked for Enron Corp., wasn`t hiding. He has his own Web site, which proclaims his affection for the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, his dislike for the color purple and his love of a special hummus recipe.

The FBI later removed Mr. Atta and two brothers from updated versions of the watch list. The brothers declined to comment, but Rhonda Atta, the U.S.-born wife of one of them, recently called the FBI to complain about several lists that still include the brothers. She cited an Italian Web site and one in Mexico. Ms. Atta says an FBI agent in Texas told her it didn`t have control over those sites and she needed to write the sites a letter.

At DuPont Co., global security manager William Reiter says he ran the FBI watch list against all 97,000 DuPont employees. He also sent a printout to managers at hazardous-chemical plants and asked them to check the names of vendors` employees, warning: ``If you find anybody, do not confront them. Go to your local terrorism task force.`` DuPont saw a few names it had questions about, but none turned out to be the people the FBI was interested in.

The absence of addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers for many names made some companies fret that the lists were an invitation to misidentify people. At Securitas Holdings Inc., a unit of Securitas AB that runs the Pinkerton and Burns security-guard businesses, Chairman Don Walker says he compared a watch list of about 150 to 175 names against his payrolls once, then told the FBI to take it back.

The few hits he got turned out to be the wrong person. Mr. Walker says he was uncomfortable participating in ``a snitch system`` based on possibly faulty data. ``We didn`t feel like it was information that was something you could make a decision about. You get a name and what are you going to do with it? Are you not going to hire anybody with that name?``

Airline Automation Inc., a Tucson, Ariz., company that helps airlines process reservations, says that early on, it was receiving four or five versions of the list a day from an airline client. Using a ``fax of a fax,`` staffers furiously pecked names into a database. ``Some of the names were so smudged it was difficult to see ... The `o`s blurred into `e`s,`` says Frank Arciuolo, an executive vice president. The FBI later sent some companies electronic versions.

Few companies had the skills to detect whether Middle Eastern names had errors or to check for common alternative spellings. Airline Automation called in Language Analysis Systems Inc., a name-recognition-software firm in Herndon, Va. A list reviewed by the language firm`s chief executive, Jack Hermansen, for The Wall Street Journal contained a number of first names of Abdul, which Mr. Hermansen says is almost never a complete first name on its own. ``The risk is that you`ll match many, many Abduls. It`s like looking for `Mac` in the Scottish phone book,`` he says. Other entries looked as if they`d been transcribed by an optical scanning machine with some mistaken letters.

Non-Obvious Relationships

By the time the FBI tried to close out its list, at least 50 versions were floating around, say people who saw numbered ones. Some companies were asking software firms such as Systems Research & Development how to make better use of the lists. SRD, which is financed in part by a venture-capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, has a program called NORA, for Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness. It mines data to detect hard-to-see links between people, such as use of the same residence or phone number.

MGM Mirage -- which was already using NORA to check hotel and casino guests` names against a lot of lists, such as those of people whose assets have been frozen -- began using the software with the FBI watch list. This is how Patricia Fischer, an MGM surveillance executive, got a computer alert this summer about the gambler at the New York-New York casino. She decided the gambler`s link to the watch list was too tenuous to pass on to the FBI: The man merely lived in an apartment building across the street from someone whose name had once had been on the list but had been removed. NORA software had made the link.

Though MGM`s list is out of date, Alan Feldman, an MGM senior vice president, figures that ``it`s better to have the information than not, on the off chance that something might develop from one of the names even though it had been removed ... We don`t see the harm in it.`` Mr. Feldman says ``the beauty of the system is that we`re getting advance information`` such as a hotel reservation and ``watch for you to come in.``

The FBI`s Mr. Giblin says when he fields tips nowadays from companies that have the watch list, he tells them it`s obsolete. But not all field offices turn down such tips.

There are conflicting views in the government about how far to go in recruiting companies as law enforcement`s eyes and ears. The Office of Homeland Security says it has no plan to share with companies a master list it`s compiling that consolidates watch lists from various agencies. SRD, meanwhile, is trying to interest companies and the FBI in software that would allow them to query one another about possible matches without letting them see each other`s data.

If the government does decide to disseminate watch lists in the future, it won`t face high legal hurdles, says Daniel Ortiz, a law professor at the University of Virginia. He says someone who appears wrongly on a watch list could ask for a correction but couldn`t prevent the list`s circulation or sue the government for damages under current privacy laws. The government just has to be careful not to single people out solely on race or ethnicity.

Businesses face more jeopardy, however. Many industries, such as cable companies and banks, operate under special privacy laws preventing them from giving customer information to the government without a subpoena.

Galileo International, which processes millions of air, hotel and car-rental reservations, has discussed ways the government might link up to Galileo`s system. The firm, a unit of Cendant Corp., hasn`t gone forward in part because of both privacy and liability concerns, says Paul Quade, a vice president.

``If the government comes out with an indemnification or firewall or total privacy system, we`d be happy to participate in anything that serves homeland security,`` Mr. Quade says. ``I don`t think anybody`s come up with a solution yet that we can use to identify dangerous people and at the same time protect real people.``

re: faisaluno


...hahah...was that an attempt at a comeback?...try again, sucka...

In addition to the serious queries raised by praful badwai (in this column) and kuldip nayyar (in his column) in their complaint reference to the NHRC…one must examine another underlying observation that is occurring all too frequently in India…

…is there a judicial or internal/external/civilian mechanism to examine the validity of the claims of those killed in police encounters…

..otherwise this encounters merely suggests state terrorism as implied by praful…and not ``defending`` the right of ``Pakistanis by many accounts`` as suggested by many...

****

…on a related note…i wonder often why in well publicized cases these perpetrators are invariably killed …very rarely are they taken prisoner…if they were then the investigations can pin point more accurately to the perpetrator’s identity, handlers, movement and the collusion or carelessness of various local, state and federal agencies/authorities whose manifest job it is to monitor and keep abreast of such developments…

…to give an example to illustrate above…the recent shooting of the three terrorists in the temple at ahmedabad…they were heavily outnumbered and surrounded on all sides…they had no hostages…the commandos knew their number…yet …from the evidence that surfaced afterward…no attempt was made to take them alive...

..t

temporal 51:

You brought up an important issue to the fore. z-tv for eaxmple shows bodies of dead ``criminals`` killed in alleged police encounters on daily basis, and 99.99% of the time the ``criminal`` is a Muslim. These ``criminals`` are not Kashmiri insurgents, they are usually killed elswhere in India in a police encounter where police ``bravely`` saved the society from their menace. The shameless and criminal silence of Hindus at this forum on the cold blooded murder of two drugged unarmed prisnors in a shopping mall in delhi in broad day lights on diwali is disgusting. I am totally convinced but disappointed that Hindus are the most indecent and dishonorable people on this planet. If it weren`t a couple of people like nayyar, praful, or the Dr. who witnessed the cold blooded murder of two innocent human being in delhi and now hiding from police for his life, I would have some serious doubts about them being humans.

RE: #41 by mohar11

``Now - that`s how democracy was supposed to function - isn`t it ? If you don`t believe that the gov`t of the day is doing the right thing - you raise a stink and seek to trigger the in-built ``checks and balance`` system and hope to find out what exactly happened.``

Two people are murdered by the police and a hoopla is made about Pakistani terrorists and you say that this is how democracy is supposed to function? I would commend the vigilance of Badwai not the workings
of Indian democracy here!

You continue:

``Now - what is your point? You seem to just hate India and its democracy. If you really want to rubbish Indian democracy then there are no lack of material for you to choose from. But this is not one of them. This actually indicates that democracy is alive and kicking in India.``

If the sight of two people termed ``Pakistanis`` being murdered in plain
sight of winesses is a reflection of an ``alive and kicking democracy``
then the USA must have some other system of government.

And as far as hatred of India is concerned I believe that there are
already enough ``Indians`` doing that. Pakistanis have enough problems of their own.

Ras

Mr. Moghul

Another good one from you. I think you should write regularly at chowk. I like your tongue-in-cheek style of writing.

People were warning about what is happening now for years. Unfortunately, it took so much murder and mayhem to make people realize that. This emerging consensus that I see in the posts below is too little and too late.

Ferozk and Romair have contributed very well on this thread. Refering to Romair`s last post where he quotes Ramsey Clark ``Is it a coincidence that people who point out and highlight such atrocities rarely, if ever, get any facetime on the TV channels of the countries that are committing the crimes? ``

That is absolutely true. And I amight add that there is an attempt by media for a cover up as well. For example a couple of weeks ago NPR reported about a anti-war protest in New York in the central park. They reported from the grounds that the number of protestors was less than 10K; however, a few days later they announced a correction (at an obscure timing) that according to the park officials and independent sources the attendance at the protest was well over 100K.

Human rights and jihad,

Praful kidwai, kuldip nayyar and the so called human rights activists of ndia, talking about the shooting of pakistanis have no idea about jihad. They have so easily forgotten about the hijacking and the realease of dozens of jihadists from indian prison. These lotus eaters should remeber that Omar sheikh, released through hijacking went on to kill Daniel Pearl in pakistan. These jihadists who sneak into india are well supported in pakistan and could be the motives for further hijackings. The fools of india expect the indians to feed these jihadists till their death or till they are released through hostage taking.

These fools owe to the relatives of daniel pearl to kill of the jihadists. Ant sincere human rights activists should call for delivering of shehdad to the dooor steps of jihadists so that others are not killed. These men who stream acroos to india are seeking death and denying them that is to deny heaven to them.

What the delhi police are doing is cost effective and humane for the jihadists. It is time that people understand human rights from a jihadic perspective.

A great day,

Today, will remain an important day in pak history, could be celebrated annually as jihad day, the day when the first pakistaby martyred in the US. Ten thousand thronged the stadium. As romair proclaimed, Kasi is a man who decided for himself, the ``non-innocent`` in the islamic tradition and killed them. He is an uncountable, he is not a pakistani who got killed, he got martyred.

The likes of urstruly and romair always quote the statistics, the numbers killed in kashmir, iraq, any where, but the jihadic fodders are never counted simply because in the islamic system the ones who went to heaven are not dead yet.

It is great to know that the essential values of human life is an outcome of the socity in which one grew up, no amount of education and even years of military traing as in the case of romair could alter this.

re: karokaram

{The police `encounter` was stage managed for a purpose. }

...i don`t know why indan agencies are doing an investigation when they can just call an expert spy like you who knows with great confidence what happened...maybe when you are finished there, the CIA can hire you..

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RAS #37, see democracy has benefits. It is also dependent on thepeople to search for a way out. Eternally blaming others for their misfortune takes to the never-never land. Check this article out. This village of weavers have made sure that every generation there is educated and many go into the presitigious IITs and National Institutes of Technologies - so far it has been 100 odd......there has to be a can do spirit. The spirit of adventure and the desire to realise thatthere is something better there. Within that comes the ability to be critical, and make sure that you are able to bring to account people (this is what is happening ref: the url you gave). May be it is time pakistan stoppped thinking of itself as the descendents of the great mughals - which they are not.

http://www.the-week.com/22nov24/life1.htm

quotes
1. In the last 10 years, 25 students from the nondescript hamlet have got into various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and 75 have entered Regional Engineering Colleges, now known as National Institutes of Technology.

2.The weavers have been shuttling from crisis to crisis since the early decades of the 20th century. ``We realised that if our children do not get good education and good jobs, the community would be heading for real trouble,`` said Umesh Prasad Patwa, a weaver.

3.Jitendra Kumar, son of Thakur Prasad, was the one who wove the `engineering dream` in the village. He wrote the 1991 entrance examination and got admission at Banaras Hindu University, whose Institute of Technology is one of the eight IITs. When he came back to the village, he urged the villagers to motivate their children to become engineers.He proved to be a big inspiration. In 1997, 13 boys got into IITs and 53 entered various Regional Engineering Colleges.

4.Said an IIT graduate: ``I spend at least two hours a day to help young men prepare for the entrance examinations.``

5.Most of the families are poor. But parents have never allowed poverty to dampen the academic pursuits of their children. This is a village which is passionate about education; almost obsessed with it. Children of many weavers are now holding important posts in government agencies like the Defence Research and Development Organisation and top-notch software companies like Wipro and Infosys.

re saxena #45

agree that was pretty lame. promise a better comeback next time.

temporal #51
``no attempt was made to take them alive... ``

You mean alive like Masood Azhar and Omar Sheikh?

Karakoram #44
``I never knew anyone or any country that is so afraid to talk that it would kill drugged up people in cold blood not to talk. Kuch to sharam karo. ``

The interesting thing is that there is one witness who says what you want to hear and so you believe him. As for danger to his life, he even held a press conference and got every opportunity to say what he wanted to say.

I never knew anyone or any country that sends its citizens to kill those in the neighbouring country just to get them to talk. Kuch tho sharam karo.

The Pakis love to diss India not realizing that India is the largest democracy in the world.It has its institutions which are there to safeguard the intrests of each and every indian eg: The courts. They have been successful in saving the ass of one L.K.Advani over a fabricated case of destruction of a mosque.There was no mosque and there was no destruction and the poor chap was falsely accused in this case alongwith that gentle and loving woman, who is really an ascetic,
Sadhvi Ritambra and a few innocent people like Singhal and K.Giriraj.
The Indian Police is the favourite punching bag of the pinkos and the paki-lovers.How do you expect them to face these paki terrorists who are laced with the most modern arms, whereas, the police has to counter them with outdated 303 rifles with limited number of bullets and or a lathi.They are unable to kill any paki terrorist,because they don`t have the means.Ansal Plaza, Akshardham,Chattisingh...these are all lies, spread by the paki stooges and the ISI.

Yo Pakis! listen and listen good.In a democracy you do NOT have the following.

1. Lies and deceit.
2. Human rights violation.
3. Government cover ups.
4. Discrimination.
5. Communal killings.

For further details, learn from uncle jay, uncle harimau and baby arjun.

khamkhwa #62 No! No! NO! You are wrong about Advani`s ass. As Jay could have informed you, Advani is from areas that now form Pakistan, and therefore inherently given to doing bad things anyway. As for that fabricated case of the mosque - that mosque would never have been there if there had muslims never come to India. Jay will tell you all about this as soon as they take these damn electrodes off his head.
Next you will be saying that Arjun is actually a bird common to India that twitters on chowk every time it reads a newspaper...

Sadna, RSaxena,
I as an individual do not support or defend Pakistan sending terrorists to India and proclaim as much so. But you as individuals don`t have the integrity to do the same when it comes to the Indian government`s stage managed encounters or support for counter insurgents. Meray khyaal may meray may thoRee sharam hai, aap may tau itnee bhee nahi.

RSaxena,
Investigation my ass. The people investigating are the people who are responsible for the cover-up. How fair can that be ? This goes further than the police upto LK Advani. Before the good Doctor`s revelation, Advani came out with these same exact lines: `` How can we talk to Pakistan when it is still sending Terrorists``. The timing was key, the armies were called back from the borders, the American pressure was on to talk because inflitration in Kashmir had dropped dramatically but the Indian Govt. are so bloody shy of talking to Pakistan that they stage managed this crime to have a reason not to talk.
As for me being hired by the CIA, they need people trained in sabotage, assasination, etc. and I don`t have the necessary qualifications. Funny as it may sound Al-Qaeda people may fit best with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Did you read about the British spy who got 5 year prison because he came public with a M15 mission in Libya that targetted innocents to further a cause. That kind of work I`m really not qualifed for or have the stomach for.

On another note, even though the armies are called off the borders you guys still can`t fly your planes over Pakistan. So fly over China to get to Afghanistan and Europe and anywhere else until we say its ok, ok ? (sticking tongue out).