I shouldn’t have to tell you how ridiculous it is to believe that the FBI’s Terror Watch List contains nearly a million American citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has placed a counter on it’s website to keep track of the number.

Many innocent U.S. citizens have trouble at airports and have to go through much additional screening because of this list, which the ACLU says will break a million names by July. After seeing what just a few terrorists can do I think it’s safe to say if we actually had a million terrorists in this country we’d be in pretty hot water.

The ACLU says:

Terrorist watch lists must be tightly focused on true terrorists who pose a genuine threat. Bloated lists are bad because

• they ensnare many innocent travelers as suspected terrorists, and
• because they waste screeners’ time and divert their energies from looking for true terrorists.

CBS points out that before 9/11, the terror watch (or “No Fly”) list totaled 16 names. The thing is now more than 500 pages long. Check out the 60 Minutes segment from Oct. 2007.