In Bush's America, Even Nuns Can Be Terrorists

These are scary times we are living in. George Bush and Dick Cheney now have one hundred days left in office but the damage done to our civil liberties is readily apparent. Authorities regular infiltrate the anti-war movement in order to do something supposedly that protects us, or so they say. It is complete bullshit of course, we know it, they know it, but nothing is really done to combat their abuse of power. In fact, it has gotten so bad that even women of the cloth can be branded as terrorists.

From The Washington Times:

BALTIMORE | For decades, Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Ardeth Platte have practiced their Roman Catholic faith with an unwavering focus on world peace. Their antiwar activities even landed them in federal prison earlier this decade for trespassing onto a military base and pouring blood onto a nuclear missile silo.

Now they face fresh infamy as two nuns secretly branded by Maryland State Police as terrorists and placed on a national watch list.

"This term terrorist is a really serious accusation," Sister Ardeth, a nun for 54 years, told The Washington Times on Thursday in the first interview that the women have given since being informed they were among 53 people added to a terrorist watch list in conjunction with an extensive Maryland surveillance effort of antiwar activists.

"There is no way that we ever want to be identified as terrorists. We are nonviolent. We are faith-based," she said.

The women freely acknowledge their participation in antiwar activities.

Not only are they dedicated to the tenets of their faith that preach world peace, they go above and beyond as patriots of our country. They are among the many that are active citizens that put the government in check, for it is merely an instrument of the people, contrary to what those in power think it is there for. For their actions at a missile base to protest war, they were sent to prison for a few years. Now for merely speaking out against the outrageous and horrific wars that our government starts, they are branded as terrorists.

George Bush likes to think that history will be his saving grace and prove he was a great President despite all evidence to the contrary. However, it is much more likely that these women who are labeled as terrorists now will be vindicated and be called heroes long before anyone would even try to say that Bush was anything other than the worst President we've ever had.

One Million Terrorists Served

McDonalds may have served tens or hundreds of billions but now the morons freedom fighters at the Department for Homeland InSecurity can claim an impressive feat, one million people.....placed on the terrorist watch list. Yep, thats right, one million people are out there, trying to cause the United States harm. Vicious criminals like Cat Stevens and (until recently) Nelson Mandela can not cross our borders without us knowing about it and being apprehended. So lets all give a big hand to the efforts of the Bush Administration.

From the ACLU:

"Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other 'suspicious characters,' with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon."

Fredrickson and Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, spoke today along with two victims of the watch list: Jim Robinson, former assistant attorney general for the Civil Division who flies frequently and is often delayed for hours despite possessing a governmental security clearance and Akif Rahman, an American citizen who has been detained and interrogated extensively at the U.S.-Canada border when traveling for business.

"America's new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for what's wrong with this administration's approach to security: it's unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives of millions of travelers in this country," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. "It must be fixed without delay."

"Putting a million names on a watch list is a guarantee that the list will do more harm than good by interfering with the travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning," said Steinhardt. "I doubt this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist."

For many conservatives, the public's enemy #1, wants to change this. They want such ghastly, anti-American changes like due process, constant updates on the system to take those proven innocent off the list and better criteria when adding people to the list. I know, I know, people with the name "Robert Johnson" are obviously America-hating terrorist, so we should just leave the government alone to continue their wasteful, er, patriotic way of protecting us. Yeah, um, thats the ticket. Damn that ACLU for exercising common sense, why do they hate George Bush so much?

Colbert Exposes Nelson Mandela, The Terrorist

As only Stephen Colbert can, taking a Nobel Prize winner and well, you know:

Homeland Security Thinks Nelson Mandela Is A Terrorist

Although it may just be a "bureaucratic snafu" as Sen. Gregg calls it, it is ridiculous that Nobel Prize winner and human rights hero Nelson Mandela was on our terrorist-watch list. The list is in the thousands at least and anyone can be put on it at anytime. It leads to tremendous delays for travelers and is embarrassing for honest people trying to get to the United States.

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls the situation "embarrassing," and some members of Congress vow to fix it.

The requirement applies to former South African leader Mandela and other members of South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC), the once-banned anti-Apartheid organization. In the 1970s and '80s, the ANC was officially designated a terrorist group by the country's ruling white minority. Other countries, including the United States, followed suit.

Because of this, Rice told a Senate committee recently, her department has to issue waivers for ANC members to travel to the USA.

It isn't simply taking someone off the list who does not deserve to be there. Another advocate for peace and acclaimed musician Cat Stevens was put on simply because he changed his name to reflect his Muslim identity. Bad bureaucracy or not, the system needs to be fixed so that these incidents cease to occur. With all the money we waste on "defense," cleaning up the list to keep the bad guys out should not be such a problem as it is for the DHS.

509,000 Terrorists To Watch Out For

Watching suspected terrorists is a hard job for the FBI these days. It is especially difficult when you have over 509,000 names to keep track of. The Interagency National Counterterrorism Center has a combined total that is even higher than the FBI when you add in the other groups that look out for bad guys. So how do they keep track of a segment of society roughly equal to the size of a medium American city? And why do some talk numbers while others are silent?

From The Blotter:

While the NCTC has made no secret of its terrorist tally, the FBI has consistently declined to tell the public how many names are on its list. Because the number is classified, an FBI spokesman told the Blotter on ABCNews.com, he was unable to comment for this story.

"It grows seemingly without control or limitation," said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani of the terrorism watch list. Sparapani called the 509,000 figure "stunning."

"If we have 509,000 names on that list, the watch list is virtually useless," he told ABC News. "You'll be capturing innocent individuals with no connection to crime or terror."

Now to be fair to the FBI, a few of those names are aliases of actual terrorists, both dead and alove. Even Saddam Hussein is up there post-mortem. Nevertheless, what is the point of having all of those people being watched? There is no way that the government can keep track of all those people with any kind of effective policy that stops one of them in the act.

And not only terrorists made the list, even American legislators have been stopped before for being on the list. Speaking of elected officials, I want to know why George Bush isn't the most dangerous domestic terrorists on that list. He has created more terror all over the world than Nixon and Kissinger could ever dreamed of. It is time to start updating that list, taking most names off and just a few back on.