THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST

Both left and some on the right criticize the terrorist watch list and tell us how the list interferes with our freedoms and the convenience which we enjoyed before 9/11. In today's Washington Post, Leonard Boyle tells us otherwise:

The federal government's consolidated terrorist watch list has become a central issue in the debate about how we can best secure our homeland. Unfortunately, myths about the watch list continue to grow in just about every report and retelling.

How many times have you heard: There are a million terrorists on the consolidated watch list! Thousands of Americans get detained and inconvenienced daily because of watch-list errors!

There aren't. They don't.

[...]

...There are slightly more than 1 million records on the watch list, which correspond to approximately 400,000 individuals. The vast majority of those individuals aren't in the United States right now -- and the watch list was created to keep it that way....

Read the entire essay here.

Inconvenience today will prevent another 9/11, or worse, tomorrow.