The terrorist watchlist maintained by the United States government, now known as the Terrorist Screening Dataset, has almost doubled in size in just six years, according to a CBS Reports study released on Thursday (Dec 14). Originally launched in December 2003 with approximately 120,000 individuals, the list expanded to include 1,160,000 people by 2017. As of the end of 2023, the list now includes around 2 million people.
The watchlist, which is intended for individuals who arouse reasonable suspicion of terrorist activity, has faced criticism for its lack of transparency regarding the criteria for inclusion. Monte Hawkins, overseeing the watchlisting policy for President Joe Biden, emphasized that those on the list are there for a reason, with a majority being non-U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. However, the specific suspicions leading to inclusion are not publicly disclosed.
Russ Travers, an intelligence veteran involved in creating the watchlist, clarified that not everyone on the list is a terrorist. Instead, it indicates that there is something prompting a closer look by a government department or agency. Travers acknowledged that there are individuals in the database who are deceased, with limited staff resources preventing regular audits of individual files.
The watchlist has had significant repercussions on those included in it, leading to various civil lawsuits. Individuals have reported being stopped from flying home after vacations, facing employment hurdles due to background checks, and undergoing searches of their phones and computers. Some individuals on the watchlist recounted experiences of being handcuffed at gunpoint, detained, and interrogated by foreign intelligence services. Over the years, tens of thousands of innocent people have filed complaints with Washington about being incorrectly treated as terrorist suspects.
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