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Comment by Swenrekcah | Hacker News Reader

None of the things you mention are incompatible with a free democracy, just so long as the process by which people get on (and off!) these lists are transparent.

But unfortunately that is often where things break down.

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In theory the process of getting off the list is transparent. In practice you can’t be told if you are on the list in the first place.

What's the theoretically transparent process for getting off the list? DHS TRIP isn't very transparent.

Apply for a redress number. If it's granted, you are all set. If it's denied, well you have your answer as to whether you were really on the list or not.

That may help determine if you are on the list if they reliably grant or deny redress requests based on being off or on the list (I'm not sure), but it doesn't help getting off the list if they've actually but wrongly chosen to list you, or if they aren't adequately convinced you're not the person they meant to list.

Civil (asset) forfeiture is literally license for the executive branch to rob people for practically anything they can think of with almost no recourse [0] and pad their department/agency's pockets.

[0]: "the accused is/are the asset/s not the person/entity robbed by the police/TLA"

Yeah I agree, that sounds pretty disturbing. I left out a critical part, that is the rules should not only be transparent but also agreed upon by most people.

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