Terror Suspect List Yields Few Arrests

The government's system casts too broad a net, and its definition of who should be watch-listed is too broad, said Harvey Grossman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has filed a class-action lawsuit against the government on behalf of 10 Muslim Americans who allege they were detained and mistreated after being placed on a watch list without grounds. People with only distant casual contact with a suspect might be listed, he said. "What you eventually get is a worthless list of people."

In rare cases, citizens have discovered they are on the watch list.

Francisco "Kiko" Martinez, a Colorado lawyer and civil-rights activist, said he was detained twice in recent years by police officers who pulled him over on traffic stops and held him in one case more than three hours, and in another, in handcuffs. Through legal proceedings, Martinez obtained police reports that revealed his watch-list status.

"A driver's license check revealed [Martinez] as a possible individual having ties with terrorism," a state trooper wrote after a 2004 stop near Chicago, according to one report.

Last year, Martinez sued the federal government, claiming that he was unlawfully detained and that he was included on a watch list as a result of his political activities.

Last month, he won a $106,500 settlement from federal, state and tribal authorities. Though the settlement did not address any of the underlying constitutional claims, Martinez asserted that it "shows that I shouldn't have been on this terrorism watch list in the first place" and that "the government is misusing this so-called war against terrorism to target its domestic political opponents."

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the department declined to comment on the case.

Jim McMahon, chief of staff for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which represents 18,000 state and local police agencies across the country, said the database helps police officers "make a better judgment" about whether to detain a person. One of the 9/11 hijackers, Ziad Samir Jarrah, was ticketed for going 95 miles per hour on Interstate 95 in Maryland two days before the attacks, he said. "Today, chances are he would have been on the list," he said.