The United States has 325,000 names on its Terrorist list!

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

Holy crap! Just how many people want to kill us?

Civil liberties advocates and privacy experts said they were troubled by the size of the NCTC database, and they said it further heightens their concerns that such government terrorism lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people. Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the numbers "shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising."

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits," Sparapani said. "If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list. But I highly doubt that is the case."

They say that American citizens make up only a small portion of these numbers. So what is a "small number"? 500? 1,000? 10,000? And what are the criteria for making it on this list?

Here is what the government says:

The directive calls upon agencies to supply data only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

So does that include individuals who are at odds with how this administration does its job? Does it include websites that suggest that George W. Bush should be impeached? Does it also include newspapers that publish pictures of Abu Ghraib, or stories that show the White House in a poor light? I would like to know just how low this bar is set. And I don't trust this White House to tell me the truth. I want an investigation by a non-partisan committee that will not hesitate to examine this program and tell us the unvarnished truth about exactly what has happened to our civil rights.

And then I might as well go ahead ask for a pony too.