Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept has published a thought-provoking article about the federal government’s database of terrorist suspects. It says that nearly half of the those on the list are not connected to any known terrorist group.

[quote]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.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.[/quote]

The article also states that, since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000.

[quote]“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,”[/quote] says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent.

[ilink url=”https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/05/watch-commander/”]Read: Obama’s Secret Terror-Tracking System[/ilink]