Being on "the list"

I just wanted to share my experience as a non-US citizen living in the US. I was reading another thread and it made me remember some stuff that I never got around to posting before now. I was going to post in that thread, but decided to start a new thread because my reply got quite long

I fly back to the UK fairly often to visit my family. For a time (2004-2006) every time we flew my wife was pulled aside by the TSA for extra screening. It got to be very annoying. They would try to make out it was random, but it clearly wasn't. I read stories about certain numbers on tickets that alerted the TSA to perform extra screening - never found out if this was true or not.

Even more worrying, my wife was finding it impossible to get a job. We always joked because she has had a bunch of jobs and always gets hired - she's extremely qualified and rocks at interviews. We jokingly said that maybe it was related to the extra screening every time we flew. Then, she had one interview (it was more like a 7 hour exam and project) at a large company and was extremely optimistic about her chances. She knew she was better than anybody else and they flat-out said she would be coming back for an interview with the higher-ups. Sure enough, they called her back and gave her the tour. They pretty much said that she was the favorite and that they just had to check references (which were excellent) and perform the background checks. After a few days of not hearing anything she phoned the woman who she had been dealing with and was told that they had decided to keep looking. The woman was very vague as to why it had fallen through. As it turns out, this same woman knew my wife's aunt (they weren't aware of this at the time) and told her aunt that she really wanted my wife to work there, but HR had rejected her and the higher-ups had told her to keep looking, giving her no reasons. She was very confused and disappointed because she had found, what she thought was, the perfect person. It was very suspicious. They all liked her, pretty much told her the job was hers once the formalities were done, and then suddenly a complete climb-down when they looked into her background....despite my wife having amazing references, awesome qualifications and plenty of experience.

And this kept happening - interviews going great, then hearing nothing again. She was getting so depressed. Then we flew to the UK and she didn't get stopped flying out or coming back. Sure enough, she had a couple of interviews when we got back and was hired within a couple of weeks. It was like she had been removed from some invisible "black list."

And we're fairly certain we know why all this happened. When we moved to the US (just before all this crazy stuff happened) we were taking an internal flight and my wife's married name was on the tickets. Unfortunately, she hadn't yet changed her drivers license which had her maiden name on it. Add to that the fact she had married a non-citizen and the alarm bells must have started ringing somewhere. They let us fly that day, but we had to jump through hoops. They made us feel like damn terrorists. So we're guessing she got put on some watch list for a designated period of time, which also flagged something when companies were running background checks for hiring. Then once that time period finished - bam - everything back to normal again.

Even our mail to/from the UK was obviously getting screened - letters and packages were taking a crazy long time to get to their destination. My mother sent me a birthday card that took a MONTH to reach me. Then, once my wife got the job and we could fly without being harassed again, letters started arriving within a week, as normal

It made me very paranoid. I was convinced they were listening to my phone calls to the UK. Once, I was even absolutely sure that somebody had been in our apartment.

To this day, I don't know if there really was any list or if it was all just a big, paranoid coincidence.

Anybody else have similar stories - or thoughts on mine?

reply to post by Curio


That sounds more like the "alien list" rather than a "watch list".

I had this happen to me. I couldn't get jobs. Folks would check my references and then never call back. Actually, it has been like this since 2005 for me.

At first I thought it was normal, so I'd call back, ask how the references and background check went, and they would tell me to come back in to get what I needed to start work.

At one job like that, I realized that something wrong at work. That something was out of the ordinary.

Then I realized that there were folks "chasing" me around. They were everywhere I went.

How did I know that these folks were all with the same group? They would make a point of indicating that as they walked past me. Sometimes they would act like they were pressing a button on a remote control, as if they were using that to track my location (yeah, right). Then they would move to something else, like pressing a button on their watch. Then they would try something else, like pulling their ear, and all of them would pull their ear as they walked past me.

Different folks most of the times, and this would go on every day and every night 24/7, starting in 2005, so we're talking about a limitless number of folks.

They would be present at every job interview, every job while I'm working, and just do anything they pleased. They'd hit me, push me, you name it.

They were holding my mail at the post office. I went to the post office, and asked if they had my mail. At first they said no, so I told them to check again. There was an argument in the back, then the mail chick came back with my mail.

The background check was sent back to the police station (I wonder why?). So I went back to get it, and it was opened. It said I didn't have any record of anything.

Going across the Canadian border, the border folks would pull me aside and go through my pockets. They would check everything. Then they would have me go to immigration to get a yellow slip, that they would have me take back to the border office. Then I could get back on the Greyhound into Canada.

Getting on the bus into Canada proved more difficult, as the folks "chasing" me around were at the Greyhound station, pointing me out to the bus driver. So one time I looked away, then looked back, and the bus was pulling out. When I would finally get on the bus, the other passengers would look scared. I knew that questioning them would be pointless since they never say anything (powerful mind control stuff keeps lips shut tight).

Well, hope you folks are not in the same situation, because that would suck real bad for you.

I mean, if it is, there's no one you could tell about since they'd label you a wacko