I don't care much, of course, about privacy and blah blah blah, but it's definitely worth noting that from a probabilistic point of view, the list is worthless. [Bayesian updating! Recommend the Ellenberg book for an easy primer -- he even has a chapter on terrorist lists.] However, the agencies which possess it no doubt do not understand that. What's the best way to make something that should be worthless, actually worthless? Give it to everyone! EDIT: that said, his list in the 'against' category is pretty strong -- though of course the idiot brigade has already come along and blathered about transparency.
I find it strange how some 'privacy activists' are so for leaking private information sometimes and exposing other people's privacy. Not the company that made it, but the names on this list. The appropriate way to do this is to provide a search mechanism of some kind rather than release the DB as a dump. If it has name and birthday as fields, require both to view if you are on the list. If you are, you don't see the contents just "you are on the list" and provide a way to contact the developers to prove more about your identity to see everything that is in the database about you. This doesn't protect against the "bad guys now know they are on the list" point, though. But the list is kind of a strange thing to begin with if it's not a governmental terrorist watch list. I'm still a bit confused as to what this terrorist blacklist is if it's not a governmental blacklist. Who is getting blacklisted from what?