ACLU Unveils new "Terror Watch List Counter"

The size of US terrorist watch lists is now in excess of 900,000 names, an absurd proportion according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Today the group unveiled its new ACLU Watch List Counter to make vivid just how bloated and dysfunctional those lists have become. The new counter features a rolling odometer style display with a real time read out, showing how many individuals are on the list at a given moment. The watch lists are used for a growing array of purposes; most notably for subjecting domestic airline passengers to additional screening, and often far more intense law enforcement scrutiny, selecting individuals for scrutiny and interrogation at the nation's borders, and for excluding people from the country entirely. Jay Stanley is a spokesperson for the ACLU, he's also the Public Education Director for the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project, which designed the Watch List Counter.

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That was Jay Stanley of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. The ACLU Watch List Counter is viewable on-line at www.aclu.org/watchlist.