By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON — Depending on who’s talking, the good news or the bad is that it now takes only one credible tip to put someone on the U.S. terrorist watch list.
The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima writes that following the failed terrorist attempt last Christmas by “Underwear Bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab aboard a Christmas day flight to Detroit, the government has made it easier to put someone on the list, relying on just one credible tip.
Abdulmtuallab, embarrassingly, was not on the list even after his father warned U.S. authorities that his son had been radicalized in Yemen and might pose a threat.
The Post reports that civil liberties groups say the new standard can lead to even more people being placed on the list who don’t belong there and pose no danger to the public.
“They are secret lists with no way for people to petition to get off or even to know if they’re on,” Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Post.
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