the watch lifts
also known as the terrorist screening
database is used by US intelligence
agencies to nominate people as known or
suspected terrorists over the past 15
years the list has grown from a few
thousand to more than 1 million names
but the most troubling fact is that
leaked documents revealed that 40% of
the names on the list had no established
ties to recognized terrorist
organizations so why are these people on
the list
[Music]
maher arar the Syrian born Canadian
citizen he would stop the JFK Airport in
New York when returning from a family
vacation in Tunisia in 2002 I was
traveling back from Tunis to Montreal I
had to transfer the F gate
I was the integrated by the FBI for long
hours I was eventually taken to the
Metropolitan Detention Center and I
accused of being a member of al-qaeda
they refused to show me any evidence of
that and I kept asking for a lawyer to
make a phone call they would never allow
me to do that and then all of a sudden
in the middle of the night they came in
and took me to drive a jet and they
shipped me off to Jordan like a parcel
the US government sent Maher to Jordan
where he was then transported under
duress to his birthplace of Syria and
imprisoned for ten agonizing months
separated from his wife and children
Maher was tortured beaten and kept in a
three by six foot jail cell I call it
the cuffin now it’s not that white
exactly that’s white and about 60 feet
deep and about seven feet high it’s an
underground completely dark there was
just a little bit of opening in the top
I’ll be honest to you that cell was more
mental torture than the physical torture
and I don’t know how survived us it was
awful I had the breakdowns in that place
I actually I thought I was gonna die I
thought that was that’s it for me I
always say when I talk about your case
mehar are with kidnapped JFK Airport yes
I was I was literally kidnapped by state
agents I think they just use the law to
go around the law that’s what it is
a Canadian investigation determined
Maher was completely innocent and that
the mistake was based on faulty
intelligence in this country I think we
think of ourselves as this incredibly
free society but I think few Americans
are aware of the fact that there’s a
secret justice system where you’re not
allowed to know the rules you’re not
even allowed to know why you’ve been put
on a terror watchlist
[Music]
[Music]
also known as the terrorist screening
database is used by US intelligence
agencies to nominate people as known or
suspected terrorists over the past 15
years the list has grown from a few
thousand to more than 1 million names
but the most troubling fact is that
leaked documents revealed that 40% of
the names on the list had no established
ties to recognized terrorist
organizations so why are these people on
the list
[Music]
maher arar the Syrian born Canadian
citizen he would stop the JFK Airport in
New York when returning from a family
vacation in Tunisia in 2002 I was
traveling back from Tunis to Montreal I
had to transfer the F gate
I was the integrated by the FBI for long
hours I was eventually taken to the
Metropolitan Detention Center and I
accused of being a member of al-qaeda
they refused to show me any evidence of
that and I kept asking for a lawyer to
make a phone call they would never allow
me to do that and then all of a sudden
in the middle of the night they came in
and took me to drive a jet and they
shipped me off to Jordan like a parcel
the US government sent Maher to Jordan
where he was then transported under
duress to his birthplace of Syria and
imprisoned for ten agonizing months
separated from his wife and children
Maher was tortured beaten and kept in a
three by six foot jail cell I call it
the cuffin now it’s not that white
exactly that’s white and about 60 feet
deep and about seven feet high it’s an
underground completely dark there was
just a little bit of opening in the top
I’ll be honest to you that cell was more
mental torture than the physical torture
and I don’t know how survived us it was
awful I had the breakdowns in that place
I actually I thought I was gonna die I
thought that was that’s it for me I
always say when I talk about your case
mehar are with kidnapped JFK Airport yes
I was I was literally kidnapped by state
agents I think they just use the law to
go around the law that’s what it is
a Canadian investigation determined
Maher was completely innocent and that
the mistake was based on faulty
intelligence in this country I think we
think of ourselves as this incredibly
free society but I think few Americans
are aware of the fact that there’s a
secret justice system where you’re not
allowed to know the rules you’re not
even allowed to know why you’ve been put
on a terror watchlist
[Music]
[Music]
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