Can British Pakistani Humza Yousaf Lead Scotland to Independence?

British Pakistani Humza Yousaf, 37, has made history. He has become the first Muslim to lead Scotland after winning the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) to succeed Nicola Sturgeon. He is also the youngest person to be elected First Minister of Scotland. Humza's father was born in Pakistan and his mother in Kenya.  "We should all take pride in the fact that today we have sent a clear message, that your color of skin, your faith, is not a barrier to leading the country we all call home", he declared in his victory speech. Back in 2016, he took the oath as a member of the Scottish parliament in Urdu, Pakistan's national language.  Currently, there are 5 members of Pakistani origin serving in the Scottish Parliament and 29 in the British Parliament. 

Scottish Leader Humza Yousaf

Scottish Independence:

He has vowed to lead his nation to independence from Britain, now led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a British Indian. Channel 4 News quoted him as saying: "we will be the next generation that delivers independence of Scotland." The people of Scotland need independence now more than ever", he added.  Here's an excerpt of his victory speech:

"To those in Scotland who don’t yet share the passion I do for independence, I will aim to earn your trust by continuing to govern well, and earn your respect as First Minister by focussing on the priorities that matter to us all, and in doing so using our devolved powers to absolute maximum effect to tackle the challenges of the day. For those of us who do believe in independence, we will only win by making the case on the doorsteps. My solemn commitment to you is that I will kickstart our grassroots, civic-led movement and ensure our drive for independence is in 5th gear". 

60% of Scots Voted Against Brexit. Source: New York Times

Scots Against Brexit:

Recent YouGov poll shows that only 39% of Scottish voters support independence, while 47% wish to remain with the United Kingdom. Can Yousaf persuade more voters to support his goal of independence? He knows that an overwhelming majority of Scots voted against Brexit. This creates an opportunity based on the economic benefits of leaving the UK to join the European Union (EU). Ireland is a good example of a small country enjoying the huge benefits of access to the large European market. Ireland is now significantly wealthier than the UK. Many big American companies have established significant presence in the  Irish Republic to gain access to the EU market. They have created jobs, increased the tax base and brought technology to the Republic of Ireland. 

British Pakistani MPs. Source: Geo News

British Pakistani MPs and Peers:

There are 15 British Pakistani members of the House of Commons, and 14 in the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, bringing the total strength of British Pakistanis in the UK parliament to 29. Most of them are from very humble backgrounds in rural Pakistan. Majority of Pakistanis in the UK are from Mirpur and its surrounding villages in Azad Kashmir. They or their parents migrated to Britain when they were given compensation by the Pakistani government for their land to make way for the building of the massive Mangla Dam after the signing of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan in 1960. Five of the twelve British Pakistani MPs in the new parliament are from Azad Kashmir.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan:

In 2016,  Sadiq Khan was elected as mayor of London, making him the first Muslim mayor of a major western capital city. Mayor Sadiq Khan is also of Pakistani-origin. Khan's father migrated to Britain in the 1960s and worked as a London bus driver. Khan comes from a family of two generations of immigrants: His grandparents migrated from what is now India to the newly created state of Pakistan in 1947 and his parents migrated from Karachi to London in 1969. Sadiq Khan was born in London in 1970.

British Pakistanis' Struggles:

While the British Pakistanis have made some headway in the public sector in their new home, they continue to face discrimination, particularly in the private sector.  A 2016 study by the government’s Social Mobility Commission found that the "children of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin in Britain have outperformed other ethnic groups to achieve rapid improvements at every level of education, but are significantly less likely to be employed in managerial or professional jobs than their white counterparts".

The study said that the "minority ethnic pupils (including Pakistanis) are outperforming white working class children in English tests throughout school, with white British teenagers coming bottom of the pile in the subject at GCSE level".

Pakistani Doctors in the West:

Pakistani doctors make up the third largest source of practicing physicians and surgeons in the United States.  Pakistan is also the second largest source of doctors of foreign origin serving in the United Kingdom, according to OECD. Indians make up 34% of the foreign doctors in Britain, followed by 11% from Pakistan.

Here's a video of Humza Yousaf taking oath as member of Scottish Parliament in Urdu:

https://youtu.be/NE_J8wzo6ko

 

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Pakistan-Origin Muslim Actor Riz Ahmad Leads Campaign to Make Hollywood More Inclusive

“With all my privilege and profile, I often wonder if this is going to be the year they round us up, if this is the year they’re going to put Trump’s Muslim registry into action, if this is going to be the year they ship us all off,” Riz Ahmad said back in 2019 at Creative Artists Agency's Amplify Conference. “The representation of Muslims on screen — that feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded.”

British Pakistani Muslim Actor Rizwan Ahmad

Who is Riz Ahmad?

Oxford-educated British Pakistani Rizwan Ahmad was born in Wembley, England in 1982. His parents migrated to the United Kingdom from Karachi, Pakistan in the 1970s. Riz is among the highest profile Muslim actors in Hollywood today. He has won an Emmy and received an Oscar nomination for acting.  Riz has been an outspoken critic of the negative stereotyping of Muslims in western mainstream entertainment industry, particularly Hollywood.  He blames it on Islamophobia from the lack of Muslim representation in Hollywood. 

“But sometimes, when you’ve got a feeling anecdotally and experientially, and you’ve been gas lit, you need that data,” he explained to Variety recently. “You need to bring the big guns to come in, and show you that this isn’t just in your head.”

Popular Television Shows:

The US entertainment media in Hollywood has been at the forefront of promoting the image of all  Muslims as terrorists. Popular television shows like "24" and "Homeland" have done it on a consistent basis.

In a recent roundtable discussion titled "Can Television be Fair to Muslims?", Showtime's "Homeland's co-creator Howard Gordon acknowledged that his show has fed Islamophobia in America.  Participants included both Muslims and Non-Muslims engaged in writing and producing popular TV shows such as Aasif Mandvi, Zarqa Nawaz, Melena Ryzik, Joshua Saffran, Howard Gordon and Cherian Dabis.

Roundtable Discussion:

Here's a brief excerpt of the exchange:

MELENA RYZIK: The F.B.I. has said that attacks against Muslims were up 67 percent last year. Do you have any anxiety about your shows being fodder for that?

HOWARD GORDON: The short answer is, absolutely, yes.

RYZIK: What can you do to handle that?

GORDON: On “Homeland,” it’s an ongoing and very important conversation.

For instance, this year, the beginning of it involves the sort of big business of prosecuting entrapment. It actually tests the edges of free speech. How can someone express their discontent with American policy — even a reckless kid who might express his views that may be sympathetic to enemies of America, but still is not, himself, a terrorist, but is being set up to be one by the big business of government?

For me to answer, personally, that question, it’s a difficult one. “24” having been the launching point for me to engage in these conversations, which I have been having for 10 years, and being very conscious about not wanting to be a midwife to these base ideas. We’re all affected, unwittingly, by who we are and how we see the world. It requires creating an environment where people can speak freely about these things. It requires this vigilant empathy.

Pillars Artists Fellowship:

Rizwan has now moved from talk to action by taking his fight one step further, by launching a multi-layered initiative for Muslim representation in media, in partnership with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund, according to Variety magazine. 

Based on a USC Annenberg’s new study on Muslim representation in media — which found that less than 10% of top grossing films from 2017-2019 had a Muslim character on screen, with less than 2% of those characters having speaking roles — the coalition has created the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, as well as the Pillars Artist Fellowship, offering selected grantees an unrestricted award of $25,000.

Summary:

High profile British Pakistani Muslim actor Rizwan Ahmad is leading a campaign against negative stereotyping of Muslims in Hollywood. He wants to make Hollywood more inclusive by increasing Muslim representation in positive roles, reflecting the lives of everyday real Muslims. Rizwan has helped create a coalition with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the Ford Foundation and Pillars FundBlueprint for Muslim Inclusion, as well as the Pillars Artist Fellowship, to offer selected grantees an unrestricted award of $25,000.

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"Blinded by the Light": True Story of British Pakistani Teen Growing Up in Luton

Last weekend, my wife and I saw Gurinder Chaddha's "Blinded by the Light", a film based on the true story of British Pakistani journalist Sarfraz Manzoor growing up Luton in 1980s when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, ruled the United Kingdom. Our evening started with a spicy and aromatic dinner at Banana Leaf, a popular Malaysian Restaurant in Silicon Valley, followed by our visit to AMC Mercado where we watched the movie.

Sarfaraz Manzoor (L) with Bruce Springsteen

Blinded by the Light draws its title from a popular Bruce Springsteen song of the same name. It is based on British Pakistani journalist Sarfaraz Manzoor's 2007 memoir "Greetings from Bury Park". Manzoor's memoir is about the power of Bruce Springsteen's music influencing him as a Pakistani teen growing up in Britain in 1980s.

Springsteen's music "speaks" to Javed, the teenage character's name for real-life Sarfraz Manzoor who is played by Viveik Kalra.  With plant closings and de-industrialization that cost Javed's father his job at a local auto plant and forced his mother work long hours as a seamstress, the teenager experienced what Springsteen's poetry is about. Springsteen's father was often unemployed and his mother was the main breadwinner for the family.  Lyrics of his songs like "Johnny 99" and "The Factory" made Springsteen a working class hero.

The person who introduced Javed to Springsteen's music was his Sikh classmate Roops, the only other Asian in high class which consisted almost entirely of white boys and girls. The shared love of Springsteen's music brought the two boys close. Javed's female classmate Eliza also becomes close to him and the two start to date.

Greetings from Bury Park, the book Blinded by the Light is based on, is the story of young Sarfaraz Manzoor's experience of living in a white working class neighborhood and being subjected to bigotry and racism by neighbors and classmates. But it is also a story of kindness and support extended to him by some of the white teachers and neighbors. In particular, his English schoolteacher encouraged him to pursue his passion for writing. She recommended him to the local newspaper for an internship where he was asked to cover the unfolding story of attempts by some in Luton to shut down the only mosque in town. He even got paid for the mosque story he wrote for the newspaper. Later, his teacher entered one of his essays in a competition in which he won a trip to Monmouth College (now Monmouth University) in New Jersey in the United States.  The trip gave him an opportunity to visit Asbury Park referred to in Bruce Springsteen's debut album "Greetings From Asbury Park".

Gurinder Chaddha who previously brought us "Bend It Like Beckham" has lived up to her reputation as a great filmmaker with "Blinded by the Light". The soundtrack of her latest film is dominated by Springsteen's popular hits. It's a well-made film. The only complaint I have is that Chadhha has not cast any Pakistani actors in this film. I'm sure she could have found several British Pakistani actors to cast from the available talent pool in the British Pakistani community.

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British-Pakistani Actor Riz Ahmed Makes History by Winning Emmy

Emmy award wins this year by British-Pakistani Rizwan Ahmed and Indian-American Aziz Ansari make the duo the first South Asian men to win the prestigious television academy award . It's the equivalent of Oscars given each year by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA).

Riz Ahmed

Rizwan Ahmed, an actor, rapper and activist also known as Riz MC, won his Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for HBO’s The Night Of.  The show tackles issues of racism and Islamophobia in the United States.

Riz has seen a meteoric rise starting with films like 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist', ‘Four Lions,’ ‘The Road To Guantanamo’ and more recently the Star Wars Anthology film ‘Rogue One’. In April 2017, Ahmed was featured on the cover of Time magazine as one of its 100 most influential people in the world.

Riz was born in London in 1982 to British Pakistani parents who had migrated from Karachi in 1970s. He is a great grandson of Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, the first British Indian to become the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court during the British Raj. He is a graduate of Oxford University with a degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). He later studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

“It’s always strange reaping the rewards of a story that’s based on real world suffering,” Riz said in his acceptance speech at the Emmy's award ceremony. “But if this show has shown a light on some of the prejudice in our society, Islamophobia, some of the injustice in our justice system, then maybe that’s something.”

In addition to Riz Ahmed and Aziz Ansari as award winners, the Emmy Awards show also featured Pakistani-American Kumail Nanjiani, the star of "The Big Sick", on the red carpet.

Although Riz has begun “inching towards the Promised Land,” he still gets stopped and searched before boarding a plane every time he flies to the U.S., he wrote. One person’s win does not fix “a systemic issue of inclusion,” Ahmed told the Washington Post backstage after the Emmys. “I think that’s something that happens slowly over time.”

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Dozen British Pakistanis Elected to UK Parliament in Elections 2017

Twelve British Pakistanis, including 5 women, have been elected members of parliament (MPs) in recent elections held in the United Kingdom, according to media reports.  Seven of them are members of the Labor Party and three belong to the Conservative Party. This sets a new record with the increase of two MPs from the May 2012 elections that resulted in the election of 10 MPs of Pakistani origin. British Pakistanis make up 1.8% of the British population, about the same as their representation in the House of Commons.

Six of the Twelve British-Pakistani MPs

British Pakistani MPs and Peers:

In addition to the 12 British Pakistanis in the House of Commons, there are 8 members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, bringing the total strength of British Pakistanis in the UK parliament to 20. Most of them are from very humble backgrounds in rural Pakistan. Majority of Pakistanis in the UK are from Mirpur and its surrounding villages in Azad Kashmir. They or their parents migrated to Britain when they were given compensation by Pakistani government for their land to make way for the building of the massive Mangla Dam after the signing of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan in 1960. Five of the twelve British Pakistani MPs in the new parliament are from Azad Kashmir.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan:

Last year saw the election of Sadiq Khan as mayor of London, making him the first Muslim mayor of a major western capital city. Mayor Sadiq Khan is also of Pakistani-origin. Khan's father migrated to Britain in 1960s and worked as a London bus driver. Khan comes from a family of two generations of immigrants: His grandparents migrated from what is now India to the newly created state of Pakistan in 1947 and his parents migrated from Karachi to London in 1969. Sadiq Khan was born in London in 1970.

British Pakistanis' Struggles:

While the British Pakistanis have made some headway in the public sector in their new home, they continue to face discrimination, particularly in the private sector.  A 2016 study by the government’s Social Mobility Commission found that the "children of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin in Britain have outperformed other ethnic groups to achieve rapid improvements at every level of education, but are significantly less likely to be employed in managerial or professional jobs than their white counterparts".

The study said that the "minority ethnic pupils (including Pakistanis) are outperforming white working class children in English tests throughout school, with white British teenagers coming bottom of the pile in the subject at GCSE level".

British Pakistani Doctors: 

Pakistan is the second largest source of doctors of foreign origin serving in the United Kingdom, according to OECD. Indians make up 34% of the foreign doctors in Britain, followed by 11% from Pakistan.

Summary:

British Pakistanis have achieved significant success in spite of their humble origins and discrimination they face in their adopted home. 12 of them serve as members of the House of Commons and 8 in the House of Lords. Mayor Sadiq Khan of London, the first Muslim leader of a major western capital, is the son of a London bus driver who migrated from Pakistan. British Pakistani children are outperforming their white working class peers in schools. British Pakistani doctors are the second largest population of doctors of foreign origin in the United Kingdom.  The British Pakistanis are among the best of the Pakistani diaspora, or any diaspora, in the world.

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Is London Ready to Make History With British Pakistani Muslim Mayor?

Opinion polls conducted a day before the May 5 London mayoral election are showing a 20-point lead for Labor Party's British Pakistani Muslim mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan over his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith, brother of Imran Khan's ex-wife Jemima Khan. Is London ready to make history?

London Mayoral Candidates Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan

Conservatives Use Islamophobia: 

The Conservative party campaign of Zac Goldsmith has resorted to the desperate tactics like the use of anti-Muslim bigotry to overcome Sadiq Khan's big lead.  Even British Prime Minister David Cameron made the false allegation of Sadiq Khan's links to ISIS supporters. Cameron even courted British Indians in a letter highlighting the warm welcome he, Zac Goldsmith and the Conservative party government extended to Narendra Modi, the Hindu Nationalist prime minister known for the state-sponsored 2002 massacre of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat state.  The polls now show that these cynical actions of the Conservatives appear to have backfired.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chief Imran Khan with ex-Brother-in -law Zac Smith 

Imran Khan's Endorsement of Zac Goldsmith:

In late March, Imran Khan tweeted his strong endorsement of Zac Goldsmith, his ex-brother-in-law. The endorsement raised eyebrows for two reasons: 1. Goldsmith, like Imran Khan's political rival Nawaz Sharif, has been been dogged by questions about his own offshore accounts. And 2. Goldsmith has engaged in a racist and Islamophobic smear campaign against his rival Sadiq Khan who shares his faith and national origin with Imran Khan. The question is: Will Imran Khan's endorsement really help Zac given the fact that he is sometimes referred to as Taliban Khan by his detractors in Pakistani media?

Will Hidden Racism Surface in London?

Will London voters saying they support Sadiq Khan actually vote for him when they go behind the curtain to cast their secret ballots?  The Bradley effect (less commonly the Wilder effect) refers to discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some United States government elections where a white candidate runs against a minority candidate. It is named after Tom Bradley, the Los Angeles' Black Mayor who lost the 1982 California gubernatorial election to George Deukmejian after the opinion polls showed Bradley enjoyed a double digit lead over his opponent. Will the Bradley effect change the outcome on Thursday May 5?

Summary:

Several British Pakistanis have been elected and served as mayors of major British cities like Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester. But London is unique. Will the Londoners make history by electing Sadiq Khan as their mayor this year?

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Hawking Weighs in on British-Pakistani Singer Zayn Javed Malik

“My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics. Because one day there may well be proof of multiple universes. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction.”  British Physicist Stephen Hawking

Zayn Javed Malik

While Stephen Hawking was  recently speaking to an Australian audience about black holes, cosmos, religion and the future of humanity, a girl asked him: "What do you think is the cosmological effect of Zayn leaving One Direction and consequently breaking the hearts of millions of teenage girls across the world?”

Responding to the question,  Hawking first said, "Finally, a question about something important", and then he added: "My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics. Because one day there may well be proof of multiple universes. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction."

Ever since the British-Pakistani singer Zayn Javed Malik decided to quit the band "One Direction",  his fans around the world have been heart-broken. There have been tears. Adding to their heartbreak, Malik does not seem like he will change his mind anytime soon, according to the National Public Radio (NPR).

NPR ended the segment by playing Zayn's popular song: "Baby, you light up my world like nobody else. The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed. But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell".  Another popular song "“Don’t forget where you belong” by Zayn  is seen by his Pakistani fans as a nod to his Pakistani heritage. Express Tribune, a  Karachi newspaper, reports a Zayn sighting in Pakistan after he left One Direction.

Zayn had said  earlier that his surprise visit to Pakistan would be a month-long trip taking him to Karachi, Lahore and parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. “It’s time I went back to my roots and take a break from life in the limelight,” said the 22-year-old in an interview.

Here's Zayn Malik singing "Don't Forget Where You Belong":

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x27xwpp_one-direction-don-t-forget-where-you-belong-audio_music


One Direction - Don't Forget Where You Belong... by _Channel_

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5 Years Old British Pakistani is World's Youngest Techie

5-year-old British Pakistani Ayan Qureshi is now the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in he world, according to the BBC. Ayan takes the title of world's youngest techie from Shafay Thobani of Karachi who was the youngest known Pakistani  to have become Microsoft Certified Professional at age 8 in 2012.

Ayan Qureshi in Home Computer Lab

Ayan was born in Lahore, but the family, including his mother, a doctor moved to London in 2009. His younger brother was born the UK in 2011. Ayan has set up his own computer lab at his home in Coventry, containing a computer network which he built.

Ayan's father who is an IT consultant introduced his son to computers when he was only three years old. He let him play with his old computers, so he could understand hard drives and motherboards. "I found whatever I was telling him, the next day he'd remember everything I said, so I started to feed him more information," he told the BBC.

Pakistani children have been making their mark in the information technology arena since 2005 when Arfa Karim made international headlines as the world's youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at age 9. Unfortunately she passed away at the tender age of just 16. Born in 1995, she achieved celebrity status after becoming the world's youngest computer expert at the age of 9, passing a tough series of Microsoft tests designed for software professionals. Her success brought her an invitation to Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, where she met its chairman, Bill Gates, and discussed her idea for a self-navigating car in 2005.

Arfa Karim died very young but she has inspired a whole new generation of Pakistani children to choose information technology and excel in the growing field. As a result, Pakistan has achieved the distinction of being the third most popular online IT outsourcing destination in the world. It augurs well for Pakistan's young but rapidly growing multi-billion dollar information technology industry.

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Jazz Orchestra in Pakistan?

Pakistan's Sachal Studios Orchestra, named after Sindhi Sufi Saint Sachal Sarmast (1739–1829), has topped iTunes jazz charts in America and Britain with its interpretation of Dave Brubeck's Take Five that blends classical violins with sitars, tablas and other South Asian instruments, according to British media reports.



It's the first time Jazz is being played in Pakistan in a big way since Jazz greats like Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and other jazz legends performed in the country in the 1950s. Brubeck, 90, told reporters that it is "the most interesting" version of Take Five he's ever heard.

Sachal Orchestra's first album, “Sachal Jazz,” with interpretations of tracks like “The Girl from Ipanema” and “Misty,” and of course “Take Five” is available on iTunes. It's been produced, financed and directed by a wealthy British Pakistani Jazz enthusiast Izzat Majeed.

Inspired by the Abbey Road Studios in London, Majeed and his partner Mushtaq Soofi have worked for the last six years with Christoph Bracher, a scion of a German musicians’ family, to design and set up Sachal Studios in Lahore where their albums have been recorded.

In addition to Sachal's jazz interpretation, there are now other signs of revival of uniquely Pakistani music. An example is Coke Studio. Sponsored by Coca Cola Pakistan, Coke Studio is a one-hour show that features musicians playing a distinct blend of fusion music that mixes traditional and modern styles. Helped by the media boom in Pakistan, the show has had dramatic success since it was launched three years ago. The popular show has crossed the border and inspired an Indian version this year.

Here's a brief video clip of Sachal orchestra performance:



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British Pakistani Housewife on No-Fly List

A British officer has recently been fired for putting his Pakistani wife on a terror watch-list, according to a report in The Daily Mail.



He used his access to security databases to include his wife on a watch list of people banned from boarding flights to Britain because their presence in the country is "not conducive to the public good".

As a result the woman was unable for three years to return from Pakistan after traveling to the county to visit her family.

The act went unnoticed until the immigration officer was selected for promotion and his wife's name was found on the suspects' list during the vetting process.

The British Home Office said that the officer has been fired for gross misconduct.

This is not the first time that questions are being raised about the no-fly list. The process of adding names to the list has been a mystery since it was first launched in September, 2001. It contains names of little children, and of people who have long been dead.

Officially, the process to add or delete people from the list has been a closely guarded secret, with only bits of information made public during US congressional hearings, according to Wired magazine.

Even though the list has grown, but it did not contain the name of airline passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, according to ABC news. The Nigerian tried to bomb a Detroit-bound Northwest airlines flight on Christmas Day using explosives packed in his underwear.

Here is how Wired magazine and AP have described the process:

The first step might be a simple tip to law enforcement or an intelligence agent or may come from information gleaned from a wiretapped conversation. The tip is submitted to the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia, where it’s entered into a classified database known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Enterprise, or TIDE. The database might include a suspect’s name and relatives and associates. About 2 percent of the names in the database belong to Americans.

Here information is data-mined to connect dots and flesh out partial names and identities. If enough information can be connected to a Terrorist Watchlist target, it’s escalated to the Terrorist Screening Center, also in Virginia, for more analysis. About 350 names are sent to the screening center daily.

Depending on what the analysis turns up, a suspect might wind up on the FBI’s terror watchlist, which includes the names of about 418,000 people — including a New Jersey eight-year-old who regularly gets frisked at the airport. Airport security personnel use the list to single out some travelers for extra screening or interrogation, and the watchlist is also used for screening U.S. visa applicants and gun buyers, as well as suspects stopped by local police.

To get on this list, there must be “reasonable suspicion” that the person is involved in terrorism, according to the AP. People whose names are on this list are singled out for questioning at U.S. borders, but they can still fly. A Justice Department inspector general report last year found that the FBI was mishandling the watch list and failing to add legitimate suspects under terrorist investigation to the list; at the same time not properly updating and removing records from the list so some U.S. citizens are subjected to unjustified scrutiny.

In order to get on the no-fly list, authorities must have the suspect’s full name and age and have information indicating that the suspect is a threat to aviation or national security. The final decision for adding a name to the no-fly list rests in the hands of about six people from the TSA, the AP said.

At this point, a suspect can either be added to a “selectee list,” a list of about 18,000 people who are singled out for extra screening at airports or be put on the no-fly list. Not all people on the no-fly list are prevented from flying, however. Sometimes authorities allow them to travel unimpeded, but place a tail on them to monitor their activity, the AP said.

Originally intended to be a serious intelligence document, FBI agent Jack Cloonan told CBS that the No Fly List has become a "cover your rear end" document designed to protect bureaucrats and make the public feel more secure.

"I know in our particular case they basically did a massive data dump and said 'Ok anybody that’s got a nexus to terrorism, let’s make sure they get on the list,'" Cloonan explained. "And once that train left the station, or once that bullet went down range. There was no calling it back. And that is where we are."

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

FBI Entrapping Young Muslims in Phony Terror Plots

Unlikely Terrorists on the Watch List

Early Anthrax Probe of Pakistani-Americans

Inside the Mind of Times Square Bomber

Home-grown Terror Plots Seen as FBI Entrapment

Milgram's Experiments on Obedience to Authority