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Data Scant for Watchlist Usage

Border-control officials, highway patrol officers and airline screeners all now have access to a centralized terrorist watchlist of 120,000 names. But the public knows little about how the list is compiled and used, or how individuals can remove their names if they’re wrongfully targeted. The database, known as the Terrorist Screening Center, or TSC, is fed by foreign intelligence compiled by the CIA-run Terrorist Threat Information Center and by domestic intelligence from the FBI. The TSC is also linked to the FBI’s criminal database so police officers across the country can now search it during a routine traffic stop. Officials at the TSC, tasked with creating a unified list, can give instructions to those officers when they search. The effort is a response to widespread criticism that prior to Sept. 11, 2001, government agencies did not share information about known terrorists with other agencies. This allowed suspected terrorists to slip into the country, despite being under suspicion by a particular agency. Full Story