Are You One of More Than 700,000 On U.S. "Watch-Lists"?

Are You One of More Than 700,000 On U.S. "Watch-Lists"?

Craig Peterson: You've heard about the no-fly list, right? Yeah. How about the terrorist and other watch lists? It's impossible to get your name off, even when there was no reason to be there in the first place?

Well, I got some news.

The Department of Homeland security has been criticized for many things over the years. One of the things that they have been criticized quite a bit about is this watch list that they maintain. They have a watch list for no-fly. People get put on that watch list. It was initially intended to be, we know this guy's a terrorist, so we're going to put them on, right.

[00:00:45] It's not always the way it goes. It starts out almost innocuous, and before you know it, there are all kinds of people getting caught in this big, big net.

[00:00:55] That's what's been happening lately. But, unfortunately, it's going to worsen because the Department of Homeland security has decided to hire regular old companies to help develop this no-fly list and this terrorist watch list.

[00:01:14]Apparently, these companies will be looking through all kinds of public data, maybe some private data, social media to provide information for this new domestic terror watch list.

[00:01:28] So you look at that and say, okay, I can see that.

[00:01:32] We've talked before the problem, man, 20 years ago. I think I was talking about these data aggregators and the issues they create. They're taking public records; they're putting them all together. They're figuring out how it all meshes together, and they come up with a pretty accurate picture of who you are.

[00:01:53] Now, I've got to say when I've had them on my show here before, I was talking to them and said, okay, I want to look up my own records. So I looked them up on their platforms. I did not see a single one that was more than about 30% correct about me. 

This was again, some years ago. I think it's probably been almost a decade since I last spoke with the data aggregators. They really are trying to blend into the background,

[00:02:21] Nowadays, this data that's put together by these artificial intelligence systems is not necessarily that accurate, and that gets to be a real problem.

[00:02:33] So who is DHS gonna hire? Well, from the description reported here by the Conservative Tree House, it is going to be big tech, specifically, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and more.

[00:02:54] The DHS will put them under contracts to hire and organize internal monitoring teams to assist the government by sending information on citizens they deem dangerous. Again, what could go wrong?

[00:03:10] Our government is not allowed to spy on us. How many times have we talked about this? You have, of course, the five eyes, and then they added more and more. These are governments that spy on each other's citizens for each other.

[00:03:26] So, for instance, the US cannot spy on US citizens. So we have an arrangement with the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Canada to spy on the US citizens for us that makes sense to you.

[00:03:44] Can you believe that?

[00:03:46]We spy on their citizens for them, and they spy on our citizens for us. All is good.

[00:03:57]What's happening here is The Department of Homeland security realizes it cannot spy on us directly. This is what they've been doing for a very long time, they go to the data aggregators, and they pull up the data that they want.

[00:04:12]They want to see if this guy is maybe selling illicit drugs, and they pull up public records.

[00:04:19]What cars does he have? How many homes do they own? Who's he dating? Has she all of a sudden been buying diamonds and mink coats? What's going on here?

[00:04:31]Now we're seeing that the US intelligence apparatus. It's really going live quickly to put together lists of Americans who could be potential threats to the government and need to be watched.

[00:04:49] Now it's all well and good. It's just like president Biden this week saying, Oh, we're going to have these red flag laws. We're going to stop the sale of certain types of firearms and things. It all sounds good.

[00:05:04] The reality is we have known about some of these people before, right? So this is all just a red herring that the federal government is doing right now because the real problem is these terrorists, the domestic and otherwise that have shot up schools, have almost always been reported to law enforcement as dangerous people. Some have even been on lists that say they cannot buy firearms, yet they get guns. Bad guys.

[00:05:39] It's like here in the US. Where does our fentanyl come from? We're not making a domestically. Our fentanyl is coming from China often through Mexico. It is killing people here in the US.

[00:05:54]The whole George Floyd incident, and what's happening with fentanyl in his system, right. The question is, did the police operate properly? What killed him? According to the coroner's report? It was the fentanyl that killed him.

[00:06:09]One way or the other that fentanyl got here from China and is being used on the streets, and people are dying from it. Fentanyl's illegal. How could they possibly get it?

[00:06:24] It's illegal for a felon to be in possession of a firearm. So how did a criminal get the gun?

[00:06:32] The police were warned about people in San Bernardino, California. They were warned. The people in that business told the police. We were calling. We're apprehensive about this guy, and nothing happened.

[00:06:48] So now what are we going to do? We're going to cast an even wider net. We cannot take care of the reports that come in right now. We're going to get even more reports, and they're going to be coming from these AI systems. Again, what could possibly go wrong here? It's absolutely incredible.

[00:07:12]They look at these reports. They try and determine these are actionable, the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. They've been deciding no, it's not actionable. They've been right sometimes, and they've been wrong other times. This is a real problem.

[00:07:29]What shocked me is NBC news with Andrea Mitchell, NBC news. Not a centrist news organization, very far left. NBC News is even reporting on this. They realize the consequences. Here's a quote from NBC. "DHS planning to expand relationships with companies that scour public data for intelligent and to better harness the vast trove of data it already collects on Americans." "The department is also contemplating changes to its terrorist. Watch listing process." Absolutely amazing.

[00:08:16] Two senior Biden administrative administration officials told NBC News that Homeland security whose intelligence division did not publish a warning of potential violence before the January sixth Capitol riots are seeking to improve its ability to collect and analyze data about domestic terrorism, including the sorts of public social media posts that threatened a potential attack on the Capitol."

[00:08:44] "DHS is expanding its relationships with other companies that scour public data for intelligence. One of the senior officials said, and also to better harness the vast trove of data it already collects on Americans, including travel and commercial data through customs and border protection, immigration, customs enforcement, the coast guard, secret service, and other DHS components". There you go from NBC news.

[00:09:11] So remind yourself what the FBI contractors with access to the NSA database already did in their quest for political opposition, research, and surveillance, and then get everything we were just talking about.

[00:09:28]The director of national intelligence declassified a FISA judge's ruling. This is judge James Boasberg, 2018 ruling, where the FBI conducted tens of thousands of unauthorized NSA database queries. Do you remember that story? Very, very big deal. This judge is obviously passing these things out like candy and the FBI misusing its power and authority. Again, what could possibly go wrong?

[00:10:00]By the way, President Obama apparently has been telling us that we should use the no-fly list to keep people from owning guns.

[00:10:08]There's already a database maintained by the FBI. So this whole thing is, as I said, a red herring. Things are going to get really bad if law enforcement does this. Frankly, they're going to do it. There are no two ways about it.

[00:10:25]We have to be more careful about keeping our information, our data private.

[00:10:32] That's what my whole course: "Improving Your Windows Privacy and Security," is all about. Locking it down because the way Microsoft ships windows and how it installs and configures itself by default does not keep your data private. That's a problem. So that's what we're going through.

[00:10:54]Remind yourself of this and just keep chanting, "nothing bad could happen here," right? Ah, the joys of all of these computers and databases and the way they work nowadays.

[00:11:07] By the way, if your information is out there at all, even if you use fake names and numbers and addresses and things like I do when it's not required. Right.

[00:11:20] I don't lie to the bank. I don't lie to the IRS. Nobody else needs to know the truth. Even if you have been, trying to keep it private. Good chance that they know who you are and where you are. Crazy. Crazy.

[00:11:36] Hey, visit me online. Craig peterson.com. Make sure you subscribe to my weekly newsletter.