if you are a terrorist do NOT even think of buying exercise equipment

because your name is on a LIST! that is all well and good BUT if your name is the SAME or SIMILAR to that of a 'suspected terrorist' YOUR name is on that list too and YOU won't be able to get a car, a home, or a good life.........

i know we have to protect ourselves from terror. i know AND agree to that. i also know this is going way too far

Ordinary Customers Flagged as Terrorists


By Ellen NakashimaWashington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 27, 2007; Page D01
Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list.
The Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of "specially designated nationals" has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area to be issued today.............

................"The law is ridiculous," said Tom Hudson, a lawyer in Hanover, Md., who advises car dealers to use the list to avoid penalties. "It prohibits anyone from doing business with anyone who's on the list. It does not have a minimum dollar amount. . . . The local deli, if it sells a sandwich to someone whose name appears on the list, has violated the law.".................