200,000
That’s supposedly the number of people whose names are on a government list of terrorists or people with suspected ties to terrorists:
Police and other government workers in the U.S. have come in contact with terrorists or people suspected of foreign terror ties more than 6,000 times in the past 28 months, the director of the federal Terrorist Screening Center said Tuesday.
The encounters in traffic stops, applications for permits and other situations have resulted in fewer than 60 arrests, said Donna Bucella, whose agency maintains a list of 200,000 people known or suspected to be terrorists. The list contains an additional 150,000 records that have only partial names, Bucella said.
But how many are actually terrorists? And how many just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time? Of some comfort:
The vast majority of people on the list are not in this country, and many have only tenuous or inconclusive ties to terrorism . . .
How many? Seems that would be important to know.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:40 am
I wonder if that number includes the no-fly list?
March 16th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
From the Patriot Act, I thought that list would be closer to the 300,000,000 mark.