This over-the-top dragnet has included people like Sen. Kennedy, Kat Stevens, and recently a former federal prosecutor!

50,000 individuals are included on the Transportation Security Administration "no-fly" or "selectee" lists that subject them to travel bans, arrest or additional screening.

The Justice Department's former top criminal prosecutor says the government's terror watch list likely has caused thousands of innocent Americans to be questioned, searched or otherwise hassled. Former Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson would know: he's one of them.

More than 30,000 airline passengers had asked the Homeland Security Department to clear their names from the list as of October 2006.

When I was a college student J Edgar Hoover's FBI was keeping files on people who protested the Vietnam War or campaigned for civil rights. Nixon could turn up the heat on them on a moment's notice. It had little, really, to do with security - except the security of Nixon's job and policies. It's not all that long ago, and you can bet when the govt has this data, it'll be used to threaten innocent people again. They can't keep their hands out of it.