Opinion ID: 622461
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government's Terrorist Watchlists

Text: Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the federal government has assembled a vast, multi-agency, counterterrorism bureaucracy that tracks hundreds of thousands of individuals. See, e.g., 6 U.S.C. §§ 122, 124h, 482, 485; Exec. Order No. 13388, 70 Fed. Reg. 62023 (Oct. 25, 2005). At the heart of this bureaucracy is the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC). Established by the Attorney General in 2003 pursuant to a presidential directive, the mission of TSC is to consolidate the Government's approach to terrorism screening and provide for the appropriate and lawful use of Terrorist Information in screening processes. See Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-6. Though administered by the FBI, TSC retains personnel from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Defense, and other federal agencies. [2] TSC manages the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), the federal government's centralized watchlist of known and suspected terrorists. The National Counterterrorism Center nominates known and suspected international terrorists to the TSDB, while the FBI nominates known and suspected domestic terrorists. TSC distributes subsets of the TSDB to other federal agencies to help implement the government's counter-terrorism initiatives. TSA uses two subsets of the TSDBthe No-Fly List and the Selectee Listto screen airline passengers. Individuals on the No-Fly List are prohibited from boarding American carriers or any flight having virtually any contact with U.S. territory or airspace. Individuals on the Selectee List are subject to enhanced security screening before boarding an airplane. [3] The State Department uses a subset of the TSDB to screen visa applicants through the Consular Lookout and Support System. [4] The evidence and procedures used to nominate individuals to the TSDB are kept secret from the general public, as are the names of those in the TSDB. However, thousands of front line law enforcement officers from federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal agencies have access to the TSDB, as do some private sector entities and individuals. [5] As of January 2011, TSC had also agreed to share information with 22 foreign governments. [6] Since its inception, the TSDB has grown by more than 700%, from about 158,000 records in June 2004 to over 1.1 million records in May 2009. In 2007, these records contained information on approximately 400,000 individuals. [7] As of 2007, the TSDB was increasing at a rate of 20,000 records per month. [8] TSC makes 400 to 1200 changes to the TSDB every day. [9] It is the world's most comprehensive and widely shared database of terrorist identities. [10] In theory, only individuals who pose a threat to civil aviation are put on the No-Fly and Selectee Lists, but the Justice Department has criticized TSC for its weak quality assurance process. [11] In July 2006after the events that gave rise to this lawsuitthere were 71,872 records in the No-Fly List. After an internal review, TSC downgraded 22,412 records from the No-Fly List to the Selectee List and deleted entirely an additional 5,086 records. By January 2007, the TSC had cut the No-Fly List by more than half, to 34,230 records. [12] Tens of thousands of travelers have been misidentified because of misspellings and transcription errors in the nomination process, and because of computer algorithms that imperfectly match travelers against the names on the list. [13] TSA maintains a list of approximately 30,000 individuals who are commonly confused with those on the No-Fly and Selectee Lists. [14] One major air carrier reported that it encountered 9,000 erroneous terrorist watchlist matches every day during April 2008. [15] Nomination and identification errors are so common that TSC organized a redress unit in 2007 to deal with complaints. The redress procedures have been opaque. A 2006 GAO report stated that an individual who submitted a query to TSC's redress unit received an initial response letter that neither confirms nor denies the existence of any terrorist watch list records relating to the individual. [16] A 2009 internal DHS report stated, With few exceptions, redress-seekers receive response letters that do not reveal the basis for their travel difficulties, the action the government took to address those difficulties, or other steps that they may take to help themselves in the future. [17] When Ibrahim filed suit, TSA managed a Passenger Identity Verification program for travelers who believed that they were mistakenly put on the No-Fly or Selectee List. In place of that program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now manages the Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP). A 2007 Department of Justice audit commended TSC for accurately resolving redress queries, but noted that 45% of the reviewed records contained an error. [18] The 2009 DHS report was less charitable, concluding that the TRIP website advises travelers that the program can assist them with resolving a range of travel difficulties. Our review of redress results revealed that those claims are overstated. While TRIP offers effective solutions to some traveler issues, it does not address other difficulties effectively, including the most commonwatch list misidentifications in aviation security settings. [19]