Here is One That Should Have Received a Visa, But…

Posted on June 20, 2016June 20, 2016 by Denise Simon

Athens, Greece – Working for the US Army in Afghanistan can get you killed, but there’s a silver lining.

The US Army offers its Afghan translators the right to request the Special Immigration Visa (SIV). It’s a program initiated by the US to help certain foreign employees leave their home countries and get on a path to permanent residency in the states—usually for protection from groups like the Taliban. For the last four years, the program has been renewed in the National Defense Authorization Act. This year, however, both the House of Representatives and the Senate failed to vote for the allocation of more visas, which could imperil remaining applicants.

Through that program, Muhammad, a former US Army translator in Afghanistan that I met in the port of Piraeus, Greece, should already be in the US. But like several other forgotten Afghan translators who served the United States, his visa has not come through. After being laid off by his army base in 2014, Muhammad fell into a bureaucratic gap between the United States’ promises to its employees in Afghanistan, and its rocky attempt to withdraw from the country.

Muhammad applied for the SIV in 2014. He was rejected in May 2015. According to the rejection email, his application was ruled invalid on the grounds of “Lack of faithful and valuable service.” Muhammad says that’s because he was fired—but not for lack of faithfulness or value. 2014 was simply the year that the Obama administration started closing army bases, in an early phase of withdrawal from Afghanistan. With fewer bases and fewer troops, fewer translators were needed. Muhammad was downsized by government contractor Mission Essential.

So in January 2016, he decided to make a go of it on his own. He paid $5,500 in smuggling fees to be trafficked from Afghanistan to Iran, from Iran to Turkey, and then from Turkey to Greece. By the time he arrived in the port of Piraeus in March, the 22-year-old’s life had been reduced to the phone in his pocket, the clothes on his back, and a sheaf of papers from his job with the United States Army.

His service and his perfect English together, in theory, put him in a better position than most refugees, but because he is Afghan, he isn’t even eligible for any of the expedited European relocation measures that the Syrian and Iraqi refugees sheltering in the port can claim.

Today he lives in limbo in a tent outside the port’s E1 terminal, where he can watch the Greek ferries come and go, bearing tourists to their summer holidays.

A life-threatening profession

Muhammad says that he was well aware his job translating between US and Afghan forces in the city of Khost came with a death sentence from Taliban insurgents, who oppose the current government and US intervention. He never told anyone, not even his family, what he did for a living.

“I was trying to keep a low profile,” he says, sitting cross-legged next to a ship bollard in the port. He forks a clump of rice from crinkled plastic tray on the ground in front of him. If anyone asked about his work in Afghanistan, he says, he told them he was going to school. These days, he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen.

In an Oct. 2014 episode of Last Week Tonight, US comedian John Oliver highlighted the bureaucratic nightmare that Iraqi and Afghan translators have to deal with in applying for an SIV—and the US system’s inability to take into account individual circumstances and dangers. One Afghan translator interviewed by Oliver had to wait three years and four months between applying for his SIV and arriving in the United States. In that time, the Taliban killed his father and kidnapped his younger brother.

In April 2016, Muhammad met someone who nearly met a similar fate: another former Afghan translator for the US army named Ahmad. Until Jan. this year, 25-year-old Ahmad worked for the US army in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Knowing the dangers of his job, he applied for his SIV in 2014, but the paperwork moved slowly. He went back to work on the base.

In Dec. 2015, Ahmad’s family in Kabul received a letter from the Taliban, which threatened to kill his parents if he kept working for American troops. The next month, in January 2016, Ahmad decided he could not wait for a visa any longer, and decided to flee Afghanistan with his younger brother. They paid smugglers nearly $11,000, and got as far as Piraeus. Like Muhammad, the two brothers now camp in the port. Ahmad has not yet tried to restart his visa application process.

The SIV process has five basic steps, which include several phases of petition and permission before actually applying for the visa. The State Department estimates that this entire process takes 357 business days—but clearly, it can also take much longer.

“The single biggest cause for delay is security checks,” says Betsy Fisher, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), which provides legal assistance to refugees. A puzzling problem, considering that anyone who has worked as a translator on a US army base in a conflict zone, has already undergone extensive security checks, including periodic polygraph tests.

Those who make it to the United States…

With patience, some Afghan translators do make it to the United States. Hamed, who asked to go by his first name only, is a former translator who worked for the US Army in the provinces of Khost and Paktika between 2010 and 2015. He began his SIV application in 2012. His application was approved the next year, but he did not receive his visa until early 2015. Luckily, he and his family survived the wait.

“I told them I want to leave as quick as possible,” Hamed told Quartz about the sense of urgency he felt after multiple threats due to his work for the Army. When he got word one night that he was finally cleared to leave, he says, he was so overcome with joy that he couldn’t sleep. In May 2015, he and his family boarded a plane to the United States.

But their departure has not had an entirely happy ending. In Afghanistan, Hamed’s wife was in her last semester of law school in Afghanistan, but they left before she could finish. Hamed has a degree in information technology, but in Woodbridge, Virginia, where they now reside, he has only been able to find a job in fast food.

…and those who don’t

Today, fewer than 4,000 SIV visas are still available, according to Fisher. Roughly 10,000 SIV applicants are currently waiting for a decision.

With the Balkan route that saw a million refugees work their way into Europe in 2015 effectively shut down, Muhammad and Ahmad’s only options are to wait, apply for asylum in Greece, or go home again. Asylum in Greece is not an option, says Muhammad. “This is not a country which can bear refugees,” he says of its record-high unemployment and the economically paralyzing effects of austerity. “Greeks already have too many problems.”

Despite being stonewalled by US immigration authorities, he carries with him at all times proof of his years of army service: copies of letters of recommendation from two sergeants he worked for, as well as certificates commending his work—just in case they might come in handy.

“I have no idea what to do,” he says.

Real Refugee Numbers, UN Report, Solution

Posted on June 20, 2016June 20, 2016 by Denise Simon

Global forced displacement hits record high

UNHCR Global Trends report finds 65.3 million people, or one person in 113, were displaced from their homes by conflict and persecution in 2015.

GENEVA, June 20 (UNHCR) – Wars and persecution have driven more people from their homes than at any time since UNHCR records began, according to a new report released today by the UN Refugee Agency.

The report, entitled Global Trends, noted that on average 24 people were forced to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people fled every 60 seconds.

The detailed study, which tracks forced displacement worldwide based on data from governments, partner agencies and UNHCR’s own reporting, found a total 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just 12 months earlier.

“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying each year. On land, people fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders.”

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi

It is the first time in the organization’s history that the threshold of 60 million has been crossed.

“More people are being displaced by war and persecution and that’s worrying in itself, but the factors that endanger refugees are multiplying too,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying each year; on land, people fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders. Closing borders does not solve the problem.”

Forced displacement has been on the rise since at least the mid-1990s in most regions, but over the past five years the rate has increased.

The reasons are threefold:

conflicts that cause large refugee outflows, like Somalia and Afghanistan – now in their third and fourth decade respectively – are lasting longer;

dramatic new or reignited conflicts and situations of insecurity are occurring more frequently. While today’s largest is Syria, wars have broken out in the past five years in South Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Ukraine and Central African Republic, while thousands more people have fled raging gang and other violence in Central America;

the rate at which solutions are being found for refugees and internally displaced people has been on a falling trend since the end of the Cold War, leaving a growing number in limbo.

“We’re stuck here. We can’t go on and we can’t go back,” said Hikmat, a Syrian farmer driven from his land by war, now living in tent outside a shopping centre in Lebanon with his wife and young children. “My children need to go to school, they need a future,” he added.

The study found that three countries produce half the world’s refugees. Syria at 4.9 million, Afghanistan at 2.7 million and Somalia at 1.1 million together accounted for more than half the refugees under UNHCR’s mandate worldwide. Colombia at 6.9 million, Syria at 6.6 million and Iraq at 4.4 million had the largest numbers of internally displaced people. Read the full report here.

Part of a solution is offered and viable.

The United States and its closest partner in Syria, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), have worked closely together to take territory from the Islamic State. The PYD’s militia—the People’s Protection Units (YPG)—is the most dominant group in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This partnership relies on a small number of American special operations forces (SOF) to embed with the SDF to leverage the benefits of airpower to take territory. This approach is based on the United States’ recent experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, where a small number of ground forces allowed for local militias to rapidly take territory.

As the anti-ISIL coalition and its Kurdish majority partner begins the campaign to force ISIL from Raqqa, its capital, concurrent efforts to defeat the group in the Manbij pocket – the stretch of Islamic State controlled territory between the cities of Marea and Manbij near the Turkish-Syrian border – will gain in importance. The taking of Raqqa city will ultimately require four interlinked efforts. First, the continued SDF-led efforts to take territory in northern Raqqa province, beginning with a southward push from strongholds near Ain Issa and just north of Raqqa city. Second, the American and Jordanian supported “New Syrian Army” continue its move north towards the town of Al Bukamal, an ISIL controlled town in the Euphrates River Valley on the Iraqi-Syrian border. The SDF continues to push south from Markadah, outside of Ash Shaddadi. Finally, a force will also have to close the Manbij pocket to deny ISIL freedom of movement from strongholds on the western flank to reinforce positions in and around its capital city.

The strategy to clear the Manbij pocket, however, remains hampered by Turkish concerns about the YPG and the United States’ decision not to embed special operators with the Arab and Turkmen groups active in the area. ISIL has taken advantage of this disagreement, attacking villages between Azaz and Marea, cutting the last remaining Arab majority opposition territory in two. To increase the effectiveness of operations in the Manbij pocket, the United States should consider restarting a train-and-equip program, designed to fit a narrow mission set: relaying coordinates to the coalition for more effective targeting in the area to take Raqqa. This program would have to first focus on defeating ISIL positions near Azaz and Marea, before beginning to push the group further east.

Revising a Failed Train-and-Equip Program

The first iteration of the train-and-equip program sought to create an entirely new rebel brigade, Division 30, trained in Turkey to fight the Islamic State exclusively. Washington insistence that this force refrain from fighting the Assad regime was incongruent with the military goals of the opposition. At the same time, Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, was present in the area and viewed the introduction of U.S. trained fighters as a threat to its power. While the program was cancelled following al-Nusra’s seizure of Division 30 equipment, in an overlooked success, Division 30 was able to call in U.S. airstrikes when it came under attack from al-Nusra. An updated program should build upon this limited success.

Since the failure of the program, the YPG has remained the closest U.S. partner in Syria’s civil war. This relationship, however, is complicated by the YPG’s direct links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terrorist group that has waged an insurgency against the Turkish government for close to three decades, first with the aim of carving out an independent Kurdistan and now to achieve so-called democratic autonomy. The YPG-PKK linkage ultimately poses longer-term problems for the American relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally since 1952, as they fight a renewed bloody counterinsurgency campaign in their southeastern provinces. Read more here from WotR.

Demand the Pen and Phone for the Alien Enemies Act

Posted on June 18, 2016June 18, 2016 by Denise Simon

8 Terror Attacks in Almost 8 Years: America Has Averaged One Terror Attack a Year Under Obama’s Watch

NYPost: America has now averaged one serious Islamic terrorist attack a year on President Obama’s watch, yet he still insists the threat from radical Islam is overblown and that he’s successfully protecting the nation.

If only hubris could be weaponized!

In the wake of Omar Mateen’s Orlando massacre, Obama whined about growing criticism of his terror-fighting strategy. But boy, does he deserve it. His record on terrorism is terrible, and Hillary Clinton should have a tough time defending it.

Here we are in the eighth year of his presidency, and the nation has now suffered eight significant attacks by Islamist terrorists on US soil or diplomatic property — an average of one attack a year since Obama’s been in office, with each new attack seemingly worse than the last.

And there’s six long months left to go.

Obama said Orlando “marks the most deadly shooting in American history.” Actually, it was the second-worst act of Islamic terrorism in American history, replacing in six short months the San Bernardino massacre as the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11.

Here are the previous seven:

December 2015: Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married Pakistani couple, stormed a San Bernardino County government building with combat gear and rifles and opened fire on about 80 employees enjoying an office Christmas party. They killed 14 after pledging loyalty to ISIS. A third Muslim was charged with helping buy weapons.

July 2015: Mohammad Abdulazeez opened fire on a military recruiting center and US Navy Reserve center in Chattanooga, Tenn., where he shot to death four Marines and a sailor. Obama refused to call it terrorism.

May 2015: ISIS-directed Muslims Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson opened fire on the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, shooting a security guard before police took them down.

April 2013: Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Muslim brothers from Chechnya, exploded a pair of pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more than 260. At least 17 people lost limbs from the shrapnel.

September 2012: Terrorists with al Qaeda in the Maghreb attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing the US ambassador, a US Foreign Service officer and two CIA contractors. Obama and then-Secretary of State Clinton misled the American people, blaming the attack on an anti-Muslim video.

November 2009: Army Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13. Obama ruled it “workplace violence,” even though Hasan was in contact with an al Qaeda leader before the strikes and praised Allah as he mowed down troops.

June 2009: Al Qaeda-trained Abdulhakim Muhammad opened fire on an Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., killing Pvt. William Long and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula.

So there you have it — an average of one serious terror strike against the United States every year on Obama’s watch. And we’re not even counting the underwear bomber, Times Square bomber, Fed Ex bombs and other near-misses.

History will not be kind to this president’s record.

When he came into office, Obama vowed to defeat terrorism using “all elements of our power”: “My single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe. It’s the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning. It’s the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night.”

But it soon became clear he wasn’t serious.

In June 2009, Obama traveled to Cairo to apologize to Muslims the world over for America’s war on terror. Then he canceled the war and released as many terrorists as he could from Gitmo, while ordering the FBI and Homeland Security to delete “jihad” and other Islamic references from their counterterrorism manuals and fire all trainers who linked terrorism to Islam, blinding investigators to the threat from homegrown jihadists like Mateen.

Obama also stopped a major investigation of terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood front groups and radical mosques, while opening the floodgates to Muslim immigrants, importing more than 400,000 of them, many from terrorist hot spots Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Attack after attack, the president has ridiculously maintained that global warming is a bigger threat than global terrorism. Americans are fed up. Even before San Bernardino and Orlando, polls showed Obama was widely viewed as soft on Islamist terrorists. He has an absolutely awful record keeping us safe from terrorism.

And this is the security mantle Hillary is so proud to inherit? Good luck with that.

Paul Sperry is author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington” and “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”

***** Now for the human dimension to protect the homeland.

Obama has the authority to use his pen and phone on two options, declare a presidential proclamation or apply the law, The Alien Enemies Act. This can only be done during a time of war, such that the United States remains in a war since 2001. There is no question that the battlefields have remained the same while additional areas of hostilities have been added. The enemy is dynamic and has moved for at least a decade and the terror soldiers wear no flag patch of loyalty to a country but rather to a militant Islamic doctrine. Former President George W. Bush using all the legal and historical experts was correct in using the term ‘enemy combatant’.

As noted above, in the last 8 years, enemy combatants have brought the war, the hostilities and death to the homeland. This is the time for the sitting president to apply his authority which would provide more aggressive actions be taken by all law enforcement and investigative agencies in the United States asserting a higher level of protection. To not do so, is reckless, antithetical to his oath and to all the others that pledge the same oath. The United States is in a national security crisis and it must be declared. Consider, this is not just about the homeland, all foreign locations such as diplomatic posts or embassies are part of U.S. sovereign land where any location that is attack would also require presidential action.

The Alien Enemies Act is still on the books today, such that it is extraordinary that no one in Congress has in fact demanded it be applied. There are those that walk among us in this nation that are from and loyal to hostile nations.

Related reading: Truman, Proclamation 2685

1.0 Million Green Cards to be Issues by DHS

Posted on June 17, 2016June 17, 2016 by Denise Simon

1M Immigrants From Muslim Countries Admitted During Obama’s Presidency

The Obama Administration is on track to issue 1 million green cards to immigrants from countries where Muslims are in the majority, according to an analysis of Department of Homeland Security data released Friday.

According to the DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, green cards were issued to 832,014 people from Muslim-majority countries in the first six fiscal years of the Obama administration, from fiscal years 2009-2014, the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest report shows.

In addition, the numbers of green cards increased dramatically in the last two fiscal years of the report, for 2013 and 2014. The records show that 117,423 green cards were issued in fiscal year 2013, compared to 148,810 in fiscal year 2014, for an increase of nearly 27 percent.

The reports show that in the first six fiscal years President Barack has held office, the United States issued green cards to an average of 138,669 migrants from Muslim-majority countries every year, and if the trends continue, the United States will have issued green cards to at least 1.1 million migrants from such countries by the time Obama leaves office in January. Read more here from NewsMax.

The vetting for migrants and refugees is performed by the UN High Commission for Refugees. The UNHCR operates in panic mode, simply rubber-stamping approval due to volume. So, let’s make a movie.

Stars ask you to stand #WithRefugees

More than 60 stars of film, TV and music have joined refugees, faith leaders and UNHCR to back a petition highlighting the plight of forcibly displaced people.

16 June 2016

GENEVA, June 16 (UNHCR) – More than 60 stars from the worlds of film, TV and music joined refugees, faith leaders and UN Refugee Agency staff today to urge you to stand #WithRefugees and sign a petition on behalf of the world’s forcibly displaced.

The petition aims to gather public support for the growing number of families forced to flee conflict and persecution worldwide, who currently face heightened anti-refugee rhetoric coupled with greater restrictions to asylum.

It calls on governments to ensure every refugee child gets an education; that every refugee family has somewhere safe to live, and can work or learn skills to make a positive contribution to their community.

Despite the fact that the FBI and CIA director have said that Syrian refugees cannot be screened properly, Barack Obama has put the program to resettle Syrian refugees in the country on the fast track.

The AP reported that so far only about 1,000 Syrian families have been brought to the US but that was because the process took 18 to 24 months. The US now has a speeded up “surge operation” in place.

“The 10,000 (figure) is a floor and not a ceiling, and it is possible to increase the number,” Kassem told reporters. High-risk groups are given priority to include unaccompanied minor, victims of torture and gender-based violence. The UNHCR insists that the US resettle 65,000 Syrian refugees.

In part from FNC: The danger posed by people coming from terrorism-infested regions has been a hotly contested issue, as is the potentially outsized impact on the small American communities often called upon to receive them. What does not appear in doubt is the hefty price tag, which is projected to total some $644 million over those refugees’ first five years in the United States.

Unlike other classes of immigrants, refugees are immediately eligible for a full range of welfare benefits.

The figure comes from an analysis performed by the Center for Immigration Studies, which looked at processing and administrative costs of the federal agencies, money for assistance provided to refugees directly or through federally funded nonprofit organizations and consumption of government-assistance programs. Unlike other classes of immigrants, refugees are immediately eligible for a full range of welfare benefits.

Camarota, director of research for the Washington-based think tank, estimated costs of the federal welfare programs by examining five-year usage rates contained in a report by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The most recent figures, show usage rates for welfare programs by refugees from the Middle East that are even higher for most programs than when Camarota first wrote the report.

Refugees from the Middle East use those programs at rates that far exceed participation by refugees from any other region. In five of seven programs, the percentage of Middle Eastern refugees participating are higher than those of refugees from Africa, the region with the next-highest usage rates. In some cases, the rates are substantially higher. Nearly nine in 10 were on food stamps, for instance, compared with 80 percent of African refugees.

“The Middle East really stands out,” said Camarota, who speculated that the disparity might be due to deficiencies in eduction, English proficiency or job skills. “There’s something special about Middle Easterners in the cost of these programs.”

The Office of Refugee Resettlement Report, however, indicates that Middle Easterners arrived with better English skills and more education than those from other parts of the world.

If the latest participation figures hold up for the Syrians admitted between Oct. 1 last year and Sept. 30 this year, Camarota’s five-year cost projection — $64,370 per person and $257,481 per household — may be low-ball estimates.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, said it would be more cost-effective for the United States to provide financial assistance to Jordan and Turkey, which are housing the bulk of refugees who fled war-torn Syria. Those refugees also would have an easier time returning home after the fighting ends.

“In terms of helping people, you get far more for your money helping people close to where they live,” he said. Read more details here.

Facts on TWO Lists, Watch List and Terror List

Posted on June 17, 2016June 17, 2016 by Denise Simon

Most Wanted Terrorists

Select the images of suspected terrorists to display more information.

JABER A. ELBANEH

ALI ATWA

ABD AL AZIZ AWDA

JOANNE DEBORAH CHESIMARD

JAMEL AHMED MOHAMMED ALI AL-BADAWI

DANIEL ANDREAS SAN DIEGO

RADDULAN SAHIRON

JEHAD SERWAN MOSTAFA

IBRAHIM SALIH MOHAMMED AL-YACOUB

MOHAMMED ALI HAMADEI

ABDELKARIM HUSSEIN MOHAMED AL-NASSER

ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN

ISNILON TOTONI HAPILON

ALI SAED BIN ALI EL-HOORIE

HUSAYN MUHAMMAD AL-UMARI

AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI

RAMADAN ABDULLAH MOHAMMAD SHALLAH

HASAN IZZ-AL-DIN

ABDULLAH AHMED ABDULLAH

MUHAMMAD AHMED AL-MUNAWAR

MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH KHALIL HUSSAIN

How Does the FBI Watch List Work? And Could It Have Prevented Orlando?

Wired: OF ALL THE details investigators have uncovered about Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen, perhaps the most infuriating is the fact that he spent 10 months on a government watch list, yet had no trouble buying an assault rifle and a handgun.

Authorities placed Mateen on a watch list in May 2013 after coworkers at the Florida courthouse where he was a security guard told authorities he boasted of connections to al Qaeda and other terrorists organizations. He remained on the list for 10 months, and FBI Director James Comey told reporters this week that during that time the agency placed Mateen under surveillance and had confidential sources meet with him.

But the feds removed Mateen from the list in March 2014, after concluding that he had no significant links to terrorism beyond attending the same mosque as an American suicide bomber who died in Syria. “We don’t keep people under investigation indefinitely,” Comey said, adding that he doesn’t see anything that his agents should have done differently.

Comey didn’t identify the list Mateen was on, but an unnamed official told the Daily Beast that he was in two databases, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database and the Terrorist Screening Database, more commonly called the terrorist watch list.

Here’s a look at what the lists are and how someone gets their name on one.

What is the Terrorist Watch List?
The Terrorist Screening Database was created in 2003 by order of a Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The database includes the names and aliases of anyone known to be, or reasonably suspected of being, involved in terrorism or assisting terrorists through financial aid or other ways. The federal Terrorist Screening Center maintains the database, and an array of government agencies nominate people to it through the National Counter Terrorism Center.

Some of the information in the database originates with the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, also called TIDE. That list contains classified data collected by intelligence agencies and militaries worldwide, but anything passed on to the terrorist watch list is first scrubbed of classified info. In 2013, TIDE had 1.1 million names in it.

The State Department checks all visa applicants against the watch list. The TSA’s No-Fly list and Selectee List, which identifies people who warrant additional screening and scrutiny at airports and border crossings, are also derived from the watch list. But it is most often used by law enforcement agencies at all levels to check the identity of anyone arrested, detained for questioning, or stopped for a traffic violation. The FBI calls it “one of the most effective counterterrorism tools for the US government.”

Entries in the database are coded according to threat level to provide law enforcement with instructions on what to do when they encounter a suspected terrorist who is on the list. According to a 2005 inspector general report (.pdf), of some 110,000 records in the database that the IG reviewed, 75 percent of them were given handling code 4, considered the lowest level, and 22 percent were given handling code 3. Only 318 records had handling codes 1 or 2. A description of what each level means is redacted in the publicly released version of the document, but a note indicates that people are usually given code 4 when they are either just an associate of a suspected terrorist and therefore may not pose a threat or if there is too little information known about the individual to categorize them at a higher level.

Appearing in the database doesn’t mean you’ll be arrested, denied a visa, or barred from entering the country. But it does mean your whereabouts and any other information gleaned from, say, a traffic stop, will be added to the file and scrutinized by authorities.

What’s the Criteria for Getting on the Watch List?
According to a 2013 watch list guideline produced by the Terrorist Screening Center and obtained by The Intercept, engaging in terrorism or having a direct connection to a terrorist organization is not necessary for inclusion on the list. Parents, spouses, siblings, children and “associates” of a suspected terrorist can appear on the list without any suspicion of terrorist involvement. “Irrefutable evidence” of terrorist activity and connections is also not necessary, the document states. Reasonable suspicion is sufficient, though this isn’t clearly defined.

“These lists are horribly imprecise,” a former federal prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous, told WIRED. “They are based on rumor and innuendo, and it’s incredibly easy to get on the list and incredibly difficult to get off the list. There’s no due process for getting off the list.”

The guidelines also reveal that the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism can temporarily authorize placing entire “categories” of people on to the No-Fly and Selectee lists based on “credible intelligence” that indicates a certain category of individuals may be used to conduct an act of terrorism.

“Instead of a watch list limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future,” Hina Shamsi, head of the ACLU’s National Security Project, told The Intercept. “On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven’t carried out.”

What Is the No-Fly List?
This narrower list, derived from the terrorist watch list, includes people who haven’t done anything to warrant being arrested, yet the government deems too dangerous to allow onto commercial aircraft. Mateen reportedly did not appear on this list. The list included 2,500 individuals when Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff released the tally for the first time in 2008. Six years later, Christopher Piehota, director of the Terrorist Screening Center, told a House subcommittee it had 64,000 names on it. That sounds like a lot, but the list includes dead people and multiple versions of names.

The No-Fly list is also notorious for ensnaring the innocent whose names resemble those of suspected terrorists. Senator Ted Kennedy, for example, was repeatedly prevented from boarding planes because his name matched that of someone on the list.

What Kind of ‘Terrorist Activity’ Gets You on the Terrorist Watch List?
Obvious things like using or possessing weapons of mass destruction will land you on the terrorist watch list. So will committing violence at an international airport, or engaging in arson or other types of destruction of government property if it’s done to intimidate, coerce, or influence people or government policy. But computer hacking can also get you included if it damages a computer used for interstate or foreign commerce or ones that are used by a financial institution or the government, if the hack was intended to influence people or policy.

Just as there are those on the list who shouldn’t be, so too are there people who don’t make it onto the list who should. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” who attempted to detonate explosives aboard a flight from Europe in 2009, wasn’t on the terrorist or No-Fly lists, even though his father alerted the US embassy in Nigeria to his radicalization. He did appear in the TIDE database, but because that information is classified, it didn’t make it to the No-Fly list or the Amsterdam airport where he boarded his flight.

A 2007 inspector general’s audit of the terrorist watch list found that in 15 percent of terrorism cases the inspector’s office reviewed, the FBI failed to add suspects in the cases to the list.

Can Someone on the List Buy a Gun from a Federally Licensed Seller?
Appearing on the terrorist watch list wouldn’t necessarily prevent someone from purchasing a gun; it simply means law enforcement is alerted if you apply to purchase a weapon. So even if he’d been included on the list at the time he bought his weapons, Mateen would still have had no trouble purchasing his Sig Sauer MCX rifle and Glock 17 handgun.

There are ten criteria, however, that do prevent people, whether they’re on the terrorist watch list or not, from buying firearms from a licensed seller. They include a felony conviction, being an undocumented immigrant and being deemed mentally unstable by a court.

Government Accountability Office data recently released to California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein indicate that 2,477 people on the watch list attempted to buy a firearm between February 2004 (when authorities started checking gun sale purchases against the list) and the end of 2015. Of those, 2,265 of the transactions were allowed.

Feinstein proposed legislation last year to prevent known or suspected terrorists on the watch list from obtaining a gun license or buying a weapon from a licensed seller. The Senate rejected the proposal one day after the San Bernadino attack, but Feinstein said she hopes the Orlando massacre will give the bill new life. This week, Senate Democrats filibustered until Republicans agreed to consider such legislation.

But barring anyone on the list from buying a gun can create a different problem. “If you prevent people on the list from buying a weapon, then an attempt to buy the weapon can alert the person that they’re on the list,” the former prosecutor told WIRED. “So you’re aiding the terrorist [with that information].”

How Many People Are on the Terrorist Watch List?
The exact number is unclear because the list includes many aliases and variations of names, and officials often confuse the number of names that are on the list and the number of unique individuals that are on it. In 2011, for example, more than 1 million names appeared on the list, but just 400,000 of these represented unique individuals. In 2014, the Terrorist Screening Center’s Piehota told lawmakers the list included 800,000 names.

About 99 percent of names nominated to the list each year are accepted, and the number of nominations grows annually. In 2009, authorities nominated 227,932 known or suspected terrorists. In 2013, the number reached nearly 469,000.

Most of the people on the watch list are not US citizens; placing a citizen or permanent US resident on the list is supposed to require a higher standard, such information “from sources of known reliability or where there exists additional corroboration or context supporting reasonable suspicion,” according to the guidelines The Intercept obtained.

How Do You Get Off the Terrorist Watch List or No-Fly List?
This remains a source of great controversy. People on these lists rarely know how or why they landed there, and the process of removal can be convoluted. In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security created a redress program through which people can challenge their inclusion on the No-Fly list. It works well enough for anyone mistakenly added to the list, but provides little help to those whom the government says are on the list for legitimate reasons but won’t disclose the reasons.

The FBI will remove people from the terrorist watch list after closing an investigation that failed to uncover terrorist activity or connections. This is exactly what happened to Mateen, which has angered some officials. “The only way you should get off the list is if they no longer believe you’re a threat,” Senator Lindsey Graham said during a Capitol Hill briefing after the Orlando shooting. “It should have nothing to do with not being able to prove a crime.”

But the FBI was simply following procedure when it dropped Mateen from the watch list, after being criticized in the past for not promptly removing people when cases get closed. An inspector general’s report in 2007 found that the FBI failed to remove names in a timely manner in 72 percent of the cases the Bureau closed for lack of evidence. A 2009 audit found that the situation had not improved, prompting lawmakers like Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy to criticize the Bureau.

The bigger question then, is not why was Mateen removed from the list, but why did the FBI close its investigation of him prematurely? “To me, there was enough here to keep it in some sort of a status,” New York Republican Representative Peter King said during the Capitol Hill briefing this week.

But with so many suspects on the watch list, authorities must be judicious in choosing which ones to pursue. “Our work is very challenging,” Comey said this week. “We are looking for needles in a nationwide haystack. But we’re also called upon to figure out which pieces of hay might someday become needles.”

There is no specific criteria guiding when to close a case related to the terrorist watch list. “It’s a judgment call,” says the former prosecutor. “It depends on the seriousness of the allegations and the result of the investigation. It’s [a matter of whether an] investigator is convinced, more than anything else, that ‘We better keep looking at this guy.’”

In the case of Mateen, investigators surveilled him, looked into his background, and performed a “dangle,” the former prosecutor says. That’s when a confidential informant meets with a suspect. “They feel the guy out to try to figure out if he’s real or if he’s just all talk,” he says. They may do this by asking if he’s interested in purchasing weapons or materials to make a bomb. “They may try the dangle operation two or three times, and if he shows no genuine interest in activity, if he doesn’t take the bait, then they say after a period of time, we’ve got no reason to believe this person is something other than an angry young man … and they close the investigation.”

Still, a case is never truly closed. Authorities can re-open it if something piques their interest—like say, a suspect buying weapons. That would have been sufficient to get Mateen back on the FBI’s radar. But because he wasn’t on the watch list, the FBI didn’t know what he was up to. And that’s what lawmakers are saying they want to fix.