How the government comes up with and maintains the FBI’s notorious Terrorism Watch List has been a thorn in the side of civil libertarians for years. The names on the list are so secret that the people on it often have no way of knowing their status as a suspected terrorists, or a person with links to suspected terrorists. An exclusive report in today’s New York Times details how people wind up on the list, and how difficult it is to be removed from the list after charges have been dropped. Charlie Savage of The New York Times wrote the story for today’s paper.