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Who's On The Watch List

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By LEONARD BOYLE Special to The Washington Post

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 28, 2008

The federal government's consolidated terrorist watch list has become a central issue in the debate about how we can best secure our homeland. Unfortunately, myths about the watch list continue to grow in just about every report and retelling.

How many times have you heard: There are a million terrorists on the consolidated watch list! Thousands of Americans get detained and inconvenienced daily because of watch-list errors!

There aren't. They don't.

A vigorous debate about the best way to continue protecting our nation is vital, and the terrorist watch list should be a part of that discussion. As director of the federal Terrorist Screening Center, I offer five facts to remember about the government's consolidated watch list:

• It helps fight terrorism. The Government Accountability Office, Congress' independent investigative arm, reported in October that its review of outcomes from watch-list encounters shows they "helped to combat terrorism."

The GAO report stated that the watch list "has helped federal, state and local screening and law enforcement officials obtain information to make better-informed decisions when they encounter an individual on the list as to the threat posed and the appropriate response or action to take."

• It enhances information-sharing. During a traffic stop last year, a police officer in a major metropolitan area used the watch list to identify three subjects of separate FBI terrorism investigations in the same car. Their association had previously been unknown. In just this instance, important dots were connected and vital intelligence was shared across federal, state and local agencies.

• It is constantly checked to reduce misidentifications.

• Its "records" are not the same as "individuals." Terrorists work hard to evade our multiple layers of security, including creating myriad false identities. To counter those efforts, the center creates a separate record for each alias, fake date of birth, fraudulent driver's license and name variation associated with an individual. As a result, a single individual can generate hundreds of records within the consolidated terrorist watch list.

• Its size corresponds to the threat. It's a big world. The watch list has continued to grow as our law enforcement, intelligence and information-sharing efforts improve and as the U.S. government is able to better identify known or suspected terrorists and their identifying documentation.

It's healthy to debate the tactics used to maintain and utilize a single list of known terrorists or those appropriately suspected of terrorist activity. But the facts make a compelling case that the federal consolidated terrorist watch list is a successful component of the layered security our nation implemented after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Leonard Boyle is director of the Terrorist Screening Center.

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