Some Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers appear to have jumped from one conflict with the federal government straight into another: At least three claim to now be in a federal database of known or suspected terrorists.

Jason Blomgren, 42, Jon Ritzheimer, 33, and Jeff Banta, 47, believe they're on the terrorist watch list, created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to track people who could be a threat to national security.

All three said federal airport agents have pulled them out of regular screening lines to pat them down and question them when they've tried to fly. Ritzheimer also said he got extra scrutiny when police stopped him for a minor traffic accident.

They said their boarding passes get marked with "SSSS," widely acknowledged among civil rights attorneys as the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration's notice to give somebody special screening at the airport. Any law enforcement official checking Blomgren's criminal history could see a warning to approach him with caution because he may be a member of a terrorist organization.

The men were among more than two dozen people arrested and charged with federal crimes in the 41-day armed occupation last winter in eastern Oregon. They carried guns and threatened violence against anyone who tried to remove them from the refuge, the indictments said. None of their charges were related to terrorism.

In a result that made national headlines, Banta was acquitted of conspiracy to impede a federal officer last month in Portland along with occupation leader Ammon Bundy and five others. Before trial, Blomgren and Ritzheimer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to impede federal workers from doing their jobs.

All three said their actions don't justify the listing and that the consequences are degrading.

"It really gets under my skin," Ritzheimer said. "It's a traumatic thing to have to go through every time I fly."

It's unclear how many others involved with the occupation might be on the watch list or exactly what actions get the attention of the Terrorist Screening Center. Shawna Cox, also acquitted in the five-week trial, said she flew from Las Vegas to Portland and back a few weeks after the verdict and experienced no additional screening.

One man who was in Burns during the occupation and wasn't charged believes he's on the list, too. Brandon Rapolla of Springfield, one of the leaders of the Pacific Patriots Network, a coalition of groups that challenge perceived government overreach, said he's gotten pulled aside before every flight he's taken since the standoff.

Ammon Bundy, occupation leader, believes he's been on the list since before the Oregon standoff. He testified during the trial that he was strip-searched every time he flew after a 2014 armed confrontation with federal agents at his father's Bunkerville, Nevada, ranch. He also has publicly posted his boarding pass carrying the SSSS label.

Bundy's mother, Carol Bundy, and an aunt, Margaret Houston, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that they, too, got extra scrutiny on each of their numerous flights after the Bunkerville showdown.

"It's just so humiliating," said Houston, 60. "And then it's scary because you think, 'Why are they treating me like this?'"

Neither of them has been charged in connection with Nevada clash.

The FBI wouldn't confirm or deny if any of the Malheur occupiers are in the Terrorist Screening Database.

But Timothy Healy, a former Terrorist Screening Center director, said that because taking over federal property while armed could be interpreted as domestic terrorism, it's very likely.

The occupiers set themselves up as champions of local ranchers fighting an unrelenting federal bureaucracy over control of public lands, claiming the Constitution was on their side.

They didn't take over the remote refuge to operate it or make money, said Healy, who was director from 2009 to 2013.

"They're doing it to make a point," he said.

The watch list

The federal government established the Terrorist Screening Center two years after al-Qaeda operatives flew planes into the World Trade Center towers in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The screening center's purpose was to replace a fragmented system of tracking suspected terrorists. With about a million records, names on the list are accessible to some federal agencies including the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the FBI and to state and local law enforcement agencies around the country.

The watch list is split into two primary categories: The "no-fly" list bars people from getting on a plane. The less-restrictive "selectee" and "expanded selectee" lists earn a person extra attention every time they fly.

To place people on any of those lists, the government doesn't require a conviction or even a criminal charge - only "reasonable suspicion" that a person is a known or suspected terrorist, according to an internal instructional document obtained by the media.

How the screening center actually applies the various criteria is unconstitutionally opaque, said former FBI agent Mike German of the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute.

"There is no independent due process," German said. "There is nothing but an agent's assessment of the danger an individual poses."

A case in point: Shawna Cox and a Pacific Patriots Network founder, Joseph Rice, both appear to have avoided a listing. Rice, who lives in Medford, played an active role in the network's actions in Burns but, unlike Rapolla, said he's flown hassle-free multiple times since then.

Healy said Terrorist Screening Center agents probably reviewed the information on Cox - including her court testimony - and decided she wasn't a threat. The fact that she's a woman likely worked in her favor because Western women rarely become radicalized, he said.

Blomgren, Ritzheimer, Banta and Rapolla all said they never saw an SSSS on their boarding passes until after the occupation, but ever since each has gotten the four-letter stamp.

It's possible to get an occasional SSSS on a boarding pass and not be on the watch list, said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Hugh Handeyside. But people who are on either of the "selectee" lists always get the added screening, according to the instructional document.

Several lawsuits challenging the watch list point to the special searches as evidence that somebody is on the list.

Ritzheimer, who lives in Peoria, Arizona, has flown from Phoenix to Portland at least 10 times since he was arrested, he said, because he wanted to be at every status conference for his case. Each time he's gone through security, Transportation Security Administration workers take him to a separate lane for an individual inspection, he said.

They have searched him, swabbed all his items and his hands for bomb-making materials and thoroughly examined his carry-on bag, he said. When he gets to the gate, he's usually searched again, he said.

Since the occupation, Blomgren, who lives in Murphy, North Carolina, has flown four times to Portland and back, with added scrutiny each time, he said. Banta, who lives in Yerington, Nevada, said the same thing has happened to him when he flew three times between Reno and Portland.

TSA officials declined to answer specific questions about their screening process.

Ritzheimer also believes a low-key encounter with law enforcement turned confrontational because police may have seen he was listed as a potential terrorist.

He said he got in a minor accident in September in Phoenix after a woman turned left on a yellow light while he was still going straight. One police cruiser pulled up within minutes and an officer politely requested Ritzheimer's license. For no apparent reason, three more cruisers then arrived and the officer became markedly rude and aggressive, he said.

Published reports have shown that records that list people's criminal histories can include warnings to law enforcement officers that they could be a member of a terrorist organization and should be approached with caution.

Blomgren said he didn't point a gun at anybody or threaten anyone's life during the standoff. He doesn't see his role in the occupation as a criminal act, but as a protest.

"We're not out bombing things, we're not out destroying things," he said. "We're voicing our First Amendment rights that are backed up, that are protected, by our Second Amendment rights."

Former Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who played a prominent role in the occupation's conclusion, said the men's placement on the list is political retribution. They're exactly the people that someone would want on a plane if a real terrorist was on board like 9/11, she said.

"If these guys were on a plane, that terrorist would've been beaten and beaten down," Fiore said.

The controversy

The only way for people to challenge their placement on the list is to submit a request to the Department of Homeland Security.

If their information matches a record in the database, the Terrorist Screening Center reviews their case. The center contacts the original agency that leveled the terrorism accusation to determine if they should still be listed, according to a 2014 court opinion explaining the list.

People who go through the process aren't told if they're listed or why and so don't have a way of challenging the evidence against them, according to the same court opinion.

The Terrorist Screening Center regularly reviews people's cases and removes them from the list if necessary, even if they never filed an appeal, said Healy, the former director.

Several lawsuits have claimed that the lack of a meaningful way to challenge their listing violates people's Fifth Amendment guarantee of a fair judicial process before losing their rights.

The due process argument was successful in a Portland court against the no-fly list. Thirteen challenged their no-fly status in 2010. U.S. District Judge Anna Brown ruled in their favor in 2014, ordering the government to provide a way for them to present evidence to show they don't belong on the list.

Two challenges on similar grounds against the selectee lists failed this year in Michigan. The plaintiffs argued that they had a right to travel freely without burden and that the terrorist label damaged their reputations.

The government argued that receiving extra scrutiny doesn't violate any constitutional rights. The judges agreed and dismissed both cases.

The additional searches are a small price to pay for protecting people, Healy said.

"If this guy's inconvenienced, I'm sorry," he said. "But if your inconvenience saves 20 lives, then be inconvenienced."

But the Terrorist Watchlist has another substantial problem, civil rights attorneys say.

The government requires only "reasonable suspicion" of a connection to terrorism to list someone, a much lower standard than the "burden of proof" required for a criminal conviction.

It's perfectly reasonable to restrict what people do in order to protect communities, said Portland civil rights attorney Thomas Nelson. But doing that without giving them a chance to prove their innocence violates the Constitution, he said.

"That's the reason we have trials. To prove facts," he said. "And the facts could be totally wrong."

Healy has a much starker view. He's convinced that if list standards tighten, people will die because terrorists will slip through the net. To help understand the stakes, he asks people to think of the issue from a more personal perspective.

"Do me one favor, lawyer," he said. "Put your family on that plane."

The future

Ritzheimer and Blomgren said they're intent on fighting their status. But at least for Blomgren, the more immediate priority is challenging his guilty plea.

As far as Banta is concerned, it's possible the list won't have much of an effect on him. "I don't have a lot of purpose to be flying," he said.

The listing has given Ritzheimer a new perspective on Muslims, a group he notoriously antagonized. In 2015, he organized an armed protest outside a Phoenix mosque. He told CNN's Anderson Cooper that "True Islam is terrorism."

But in June, Ritzheimer reached out to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, offering to join the organization in a lawsuit challenging the watch list. The subject line said: "Olive Branch."

The council never got back to him, he said.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the council, was skeptical of Ritzheimer's overture, but told The Oregonian/OregonLive that any reconciliation could start with a meeting in a public place between Ritzheimer and the executive director of the council's Arizona branch, potentially to be followed by a visit to the Phoenix mosque.

Ritzheimer said he gets it now.

"There's Muslims that are American citizens that are also put on this list without due process and that's not right," he said. "I would gladly defend their rights as well."

-- Fedor Zarkhin

503-294-7674; @fedorzarkhin