Our "terrorist" tracking system by the numbers

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux (The Intercept, "Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers"

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Biggest group on watchlist not terrorists

Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by 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.” That category -- 280,000 people -- dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

1984: The numbers are shocking and aimed at something far more sinister than "terrorism."

 

Peter, are you targeting American citizens?

The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the “terrorist” screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than tenfold, to an all-time high of 47,000 -- surpassing the number of people barred from flying under [Unprecedented President] George W. Bush.

 

Obama and Nixon (TTDB)

“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.”

 

The classified documents were prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, the lead agency for tracking individuals with suspected links to international terrorism. Stamped “SECRET” and “NOFORN” (indicating they are not to be shared with foreign governments), they offer the most complete numerical picture of the watchlisting system to date. Among the revelations:

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When Guns Are Everywhere in police hands (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

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• The second-highest concentration of people designated as “known or suspected terrorists” by the government is in Dearborn, Michigan -- a city of 96,000 that has the largest percentage of Arab-American residents in the country.
• The government adds names to its databases, or adds information on existing subjects, at a rate of 900 records/day.
• The CIA uses a previously unknown program, code-named Hydra, to secretly access databases maintained by foreign countries and extract  data to add to the watchlists.

Puppet "Capt. America" and Nixon (thenation)

A U.S. counterterrorism official familiar with watchlisting data told The Intercept that as of November 2013, there were approximately 700,000 people in the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, but declined to provide the current numbers. Last month, the Associated Press, citing federal court filings by government lawyers, reported that there have been 1.5 million names added to the watchlist over the past five years. More

Saving Native American LA: "Hahamongna"

Ashley Wells, Xochitl, Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; SaveHahamongna.org; TongvaTribe.net; Andre Coleman (PasadenaWeekly.com, Jan. 2, 2014)

Mountain watershed north of Los Angeles's tangled freeways (SaveHahamongva.org

Tongva of Los Angeles, Chumash of Malibu, Acjachemem of Orange County (tongvatribe.net)

 

JPL, waterway (swartzentrover.com)

DEVIL'S GATE - In the Pasadena foothills (Los Angeles County), there is a dam placed above the world-famous Rose Bowl. 

This is sacred First Nations (the Tongva, the original inhabitants of L.A.) land known as Xaxaamonga. It was taken over by an imperial army long ago, and that military force built a jet propulsion and skunk works laboratory (JPL) affiliated with nearby Caltech University.

Chris Nyerges in Hahamongna (latimes.com)

The Hahamongna basin was once a great meeting place, a periodic city set up as the site of great gatherings of Native Americans from what is now the Los Angeles metropolitan basin, its eroding foothills, crowded coastal zone (particularly Malibu), Catalina (part of the Channel Islands), and modern Orange County.

That is all to be destroyed.

 

Angeles Nat'l Forest foothills, JPL (SH)

A new plan aims to remove the land and truck it away in the name of "sediment clean-up." At an estimated cost of $70 million, the Hahamongna Watershed Park will more or less cease to exist as a natural habitat. No tree or vegetation will be left standing. In its place concrete, dirt, and rubble will remind local hikers of what was once pre-European-invasion life in the area.

The original inhabitants, the Tongva tribe of the Los Angeles basin (tongvatribe.net)

 

Save Hahamongna!

LA County Flood Control District's EIR

Hahamongna is a rare spot in the Arroyo Seco at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains where the natural watershed meets the urban plain. Periodically, flash floods roar into this basin. Bounded on the north by the mountains and an ominous Jet Propulsion Lab, on the south by Devil's Gate Dam, Hahamongna contains five unique habitat zones that only exist in alluvial canyons near the mountains as well as wildlife (birds, hawks, lions, deer, foxes, toads, bobcats). Most sites like this in Southern California have already been destroyed. Can we afford let Hahamongna go the way of other lost environmental treasures in Southern California. LATEST NEWS

The trucks are coming: 200,000 double-bed, diesel-spewing, street-clogging machines will cause noise, dust, and air pollution, destroying precious habitat (savehahamongna.org).

 

Scraping the Bottom

André Coleman

Hahamongna trees (SH)

City officials and local residents join forces against sediment removal plans for Devil’s Gate Dam. Pasadena officials opposed to a five-year, $70-million sediment clean-up of Devil’s Gate Dam in Hahamongna Watershed Park, which they say could increase health risks and negatively impact local traffic, are making their feelings known in a letter to L.A. County officials pushing the controversial project. County Public Works Department officials want to remove up to 4-million cubic yards of sediment and build up around Devil’s Gate Dam, located in the southern portion of the park, but the excavation would also force workers to remove trees and vegetation in the area. More