Comment Unorganized terrorism is bad. The real problem is (Score 5, Insightful) 256
I hate to say it, and I know this will go against the common feeling here, but I think TFS misses the point. Misses by some distance, actually.
Timothy McVeigh wasn't, to my knowledge, associated with any recognized terrorists organizations. That doesn't mean he shouldn't have been on a list of people the FBI is concerned about. Whether or not they are known to be a member of a known terrorist group isn't the important question. (Note also the difference between "we don't know which group they are affiliated with" vs "we know they aren't communicating with any group"). If someone is acting like a terrorist, such as buying explosives on the black market, the government should probably make a note of that fact, regardless of what groups they are associated with or not associated with.
The information in the report that is more concerning to me is that they have added 430,000 names to the "terrorist-related" database in the last four years. That sounds like far too many people. I was surprised the report said they REMOVED 50,000 names in those same four years. That's good news. I'm also concerned about the EFFECTS of being in this database. If there were that many people on the no-fly list, that would be troubling, but I don't think that's the case. If a listed person flies to the middle east and back and that triggers a notification to authorities so they can include that information in their larger understanding of what's going on, that's less troubling.
We should be asking "how is this list used?" and "what ARE the criteria to be put on this list?"
Those, I think, are more important questions than "how many act alone or in small groups, as opposed to recognized organizations?"