A Former FBI Agent Explains the Terrorist Watch List | Explorer

What exactly can the government do to him, to any of us, whether we're on the watch list or not? As a journalist, my first hunch is to go straight to the source. Michael German is a former FBI agent who has experience with the terrorism watch list.

What is the internal designation given to people who are on that watch list?

Not necessarily suspected terrorists. Do you need to be a known or suspected terrorist to be given that designation? No, you do not. There's plenty of evidence that people who were put on these lists were investigated for no reason. So you're building this expanding pool of suspects based on little or no real evidence.

What are the most extreme things that can happen to you if you end up in that system?

There's so little transparency that we don't know all the ways the watchlist can affect you. So from a deprivation of rights standpoint, there's a lot you can lose. Let's say I'm, you know, I'm an American citizen. I get taken into secondary screening. Surely, I have Fourth Amendment protections, right?

Not at the border. Anything coming across the border could be contraband, and therefore the government has a right to search it without warrant. The agents that take me to secondary screening have the authority to read the contents of my emails or my text messages. And not just read them, but put them in a database for other agents across the intelligence community to read them. All of that information can be collectively cross-referenced.

So I think a lot of people are not aware of this. What you're saying is that at least some of our constitutional protections don't exist when we're in a border crossing or when we're coming back from abroad.

Right. You might try going to the airport tomorrow and see how you do.