{"id":475501,"date":"2026-02-18T08:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/475501\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T08:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:45:12","slug":"ice-expands-watchlist-effort-ken-klippenstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/475501\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE Expands Watchlist Effort – Ken Klippenstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Tricia McLaughlin<\/p>\n

Today we learned about the resignation of homeland security spokesperson and resident shock jock Tricia McLaughlin, who cast Renee Good and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists before their bodies were even cold.<\/p>\n

But when I reported on homeland security\u2019s secret watchlists<\/a> last month, I learned that there was one word that even a firebrand like her wasn\u2019t willing to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is NO database of \u2018domestic terrorists\u2019 run by DHS,\u201d McLaughlin said in a statement.<\/p>\n

It is also today of all days, as McLaughlin prepares to exit the public stage, that I learned a DHS contractor is looking for a \u201cCriminal Analyst\u201d to join their company to help ICE with its evidently growing watchlisting effort.<\/p>\n

The company, Xcelerate Solutions, is looking for a Top Secret-cleared analyst to join the \u201cwatchlisting team\u201d for the purpose of \u201cSupporting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),\u201d to quote from the job announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Xcelerate is a DHS, Pentagon, and FBI contractor founded in 2009 and intimately involved in the government\u2019s larger \u201cvetting\u201d operation, from assisting the government in clearing its own personnel for access to classified material to then spying on those very people to ensure that they don\u2019t leak that material.<\/p>\n

The job announcement is graciously explicit about the work involved:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnalysis of watchlist data to identify criminal actors and networks,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNominate or enhance records of individuals eligible for watchlist,\u201d and<\/p>\n

\u201cReview and deconflict previously submitted watchlist nominations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Screenshot of job announcement<\/p>\n

In other words, ICE has an entire watchlist apparatus that seeks out \u201ccriminals,\u201d primarily illegal aliens and transnational criminals. This criminal analyst job might only refer to those individuals, especially because it uses the label \u201ccriminal\u201d instead of terrorist to describe the target group. And that\u2019s been ICE\u2019s role\u2014that is, before Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

McLaughlin and others at DHS were forced to issue their denials of the existence of a domestic watchlist after a federal agent in Maine was recorded telling a protester who was filming him: \u201cWe have a nice little database and now you\u2019re considered a domestic terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told Congress last week: \u201cI can\u2019t speak for that individual, but I can assure you that there is no database that\u2019s tracking United States citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of these denials rely on technicalities, my sources say. Officials argue that because their lists, records, investigative files, tip-offs, warnings and the like aren\u2019t specific databases, they aren\u2019t officially \u201cwatchlists.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the national security world, a \u201cwatchlist\u201d is a specific legal term of art to describe the Terrorist Screening Dataset, which itself used to be called the Terrorist Screening Database because it once referred to one single watchlist (now there are many). By claiming they don\u2019t have a \u201cwatchlist,\u201d homeland security isn\u2019t saying they aren\u2019t tracking people; they are saying they aren\u2019t using that specific administrative bucket. At least, that was before the job announcement revealed that indeed ICE was referring to a watchlist of its own.<\/p>\n

The terminology is indeed confusing, intentionally so. The job description says \u201cTargeting Folders,\u201d \u201cContinuous Evaluation Files,\u201d or \u201cIdentity Intelligence Clusters.\u201d Note the job description\u2019s use of the word \u201cDeconfliction.\u201d That\u2019s only necessary when there are multiple agencies doing overlapping things. You can\u2019t have a \u201cdeconfliction\u201d process if there isn\u2019t a list to conflict with in the first place. <\/p>\n

Last month I reported on the existence of several such watchlists maintained by the Department, with codenames like Sparta, Reaper and Grapevine. A senior DHS watchlist official who saw the story acknowledged to me privately that they exist but insisted that they aren\u2019t technically watchlists. I don\u2019t doubt he believes that. But these systems process and store identifying information about domestic targets. Some are apps, I\u2019m told. Some are databases of specific data. But they are all watchlists or parts of an above Top Secret watchlisting enterprise.<\/p>\n

Now, ICE is building a new watchlisting enterprise (the job announcement itself says the location in Northern Virginia hasn\u2019t yet been decided) and though this specific \u201ccriminal\u201d analyst might be assigned to target and track individuals other than Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, it\u2019s not hard to see where this is heading.<\/p>\n

Major media outlets have largely accepted the official denials that there is any watchlist, rather than examining the evidence. The problem stems from media norms that require documents to literally contain specific words before reporters will use them. In this case, that means waiting for a document stamped \u201cWATCHLIST.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s rarely how these things work, especially when it comes to risk-averse bureaucrats who are masters at avoiding controversy by employing euphemistic language that says nothing.<\/p>\n

I encountered the same dynamic when reporting on Mayor Mamdani\u2019s short-lived reassignment of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. I called the new reporting structure\u2014moving from direct report to the previous mayor to reporting through a deputy\u2014a demotion. When Mamdani denied it was a demotion, media outlets criticized me for not using his language.<\/p>\n

When a reporter refuses to call a demotion a ‘demotion’ because the Mayor says it’s a ‘realignment,’ they aren’t being objective \u2014 they are being a stenographer. The same deference to official language over common sense is why the media won’t say ‘watchlist.’<\/p>\n

Lewis Carroll captured this problem perfectly in Alice in Wonderland:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I use a word,\u201d Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, \u201cit means just what I choose it to mean\u2014neither more nor less.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Alice, \u201cwhether you can make words mean so many different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Humpty Dumpty, \u201cwhich is to be master\u2014that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

I believe in calling things what they are. <\/p>\n

Leave a comment<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2014 Edited by William M. Arkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tricia McLaughlin Today we learned about the resignation of homeland security spokesperson and resident shock jock Tricia McLaughlin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-475501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}