Dep't Of Justice Inspector General Says Terror List is Inadequate

According to the Justice Department, who recently releases a government audit report, the government’s principal terrorist watch list is riddled with errors and completely fails to include significant information about known terrorists.^[1] The report found that the Terrorist Screening Center,^[2] the FBI-run agency that compiles the list, was “unable to ensure that consistent, accurate and complete terrorist information is disseminated to frontline screening agents in a timely manner.”^[3]

Information from the watch list is distributed throughout the government, including to immigration and customs agents, to State Department consular officials overseas who review visa applications, and to state and local law enforcement agencies.^[4]

While it did not reveal the number of names on the list, the report suggested that the number has grown substantially.^[5] It noted that 700,000 individual records on terrorists and terrorist suspects were maintained in the database as of this spring, four times as many as three years ago.^[6]

The report, compiled by Justice Department inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, raises the possibility that known terrorists could be granted visas or could enter the country undetected at border crossings because of errors in the list.^[7]

“A single omission of a terrorist identity or an inaccuracy in the identifying information can have enormous consequences,” it cited some 20 instances in which records on known terrorists and suspects “were not watch-listed properly.”^[8]

Despite the harsh criticism, the inspector general’s report said that there had been improvements in management of the list since a similar audit two years ago.^[9] The report did praise the screening center for increasing the number of employees assigned to national security quality assurance and establishing an office to deal with complaints from people who contend that they are on the list in error.^[10]

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^[1] Philip Shenon, Inspection Notes Errors in Terror List, Washington Post, September 7, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/us/07watch.html (last visited September 7, 2007).
^[2] The Terrorist Screening Center was created in 2003 in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and by the discovery by outside investigators that the government did not have a centralized terrorist watch list. The center was assigned to create a master list to integrate the information from at least a dozen terrorist watch lists that had been maintained by different agencies before the 2001 attacks.
^[3] Shenon, supra note 1.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id,
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] Id.