A million people around the world were listed in the US government’s “Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment” (TIDE) as of August 2013, of whom 680,000 were included in the “Terrorist Screening Database” (TSDB), according to a classified breakdown of watchlist entries and uses published today by The Intercept.

Two weeks ago, The Intercept made public the US government’s watchlisting/witchhunting manual. Now the same publication from the aptly named First Look Media has provided a first look at how many people are affected by “watchlisting” practices, and who these people are.

(Ironically, these revelations come at the same time that the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) is advertising “Watchlisting” jobs.)

The internal government documents published by The Intercept categorize TSDB entries by “group affiliation”, rather than by what (if any) threat these people are believed to pose. But 280,000 of the 680,000 people listed in the TSDB were described as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation”.

Of the entries on the watchlists in the TSDB, 47,000 were on the no-fly list, and 16,000 were on the “selectee” list of people subjected to more intrusive “screening” whenever they fly.  Five thousand “US persons” (US citizens and permanent residents or green-card holders) were on watchlists, including 800 on the no-fly list and 1,200 on the “selectee” list.

As of August 2013, according to these documents, 240 new names were “nominated” to these lists each day, while only 60 entries were removed. That means the million-entry TIDE list was growing at the rate of 180 entries per day, or 65,000 entries per year.

But don’t be misled by the government’s Orwellian use of the term “watchlist” into thinking that “only” a million people are being “watched” by the government or treated as supected terrorists when they travel. US government surveillance of travelers is a dragnet that affects all travelers, not just those on watchlists.

All air travelers are “watched” and our movements and associations are recorded in secret, permanent government dossiers.  All travelers are profiled and assigned secret “risk assessment” scores each time we fly.  All travelers must obtain individualized, per-passenger per-flight government permission before any airline is allowed to issue a boarding pass.

The million people on US government watchlists (as of August 2013) are those who are subjected, on the basis of this blacklisting and dragnet surveillance, to even more intrusive surveillance and/or other restrictions on the exercise of fundamental rights, such as the rights to freedom of association and freedom of movement.