There’s always been speculation of just how many suspected terrorists at airports are really stopped by security officials. Well-publicized cases came up regularly but what are the numbers?
There’s still no definite answer but a recent story said the security officials encountered an average of 55 daily encounters with "known or suspected terrorists" named on government watch lists.
Reuter quoted unnamed sources in saying the encounters involve airport and border security personnel as well as federal and local law enforcement officers. That’s a total of 20,000 incidents a year.
Reuters added that very few of those daily contacts lead to arrests.
Fewer than 500 of the individuals on the no-fly list are US citizens, officials said.
Civil liberties groups question the use of the "watchlists," and they have been ridiculed for ensnaring innocent citizens, but their numbers keep growing. There were only 4,000 names on the list as recently as 2009.
The Travel Insider wonders how so many law enforcement officials can encounter so many terrorists but only arrest "very few." The site asks what happened to the huge majority? Were they held for questioning?
"The answer to that question exposes the entire charade that underlies so much of the mega-billion dollar a year government growth industry that has become ‘the war on terror innocent citizens,’ the site says.
By David Wilkening
