CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – INTELLIGENCE
Sept. 6, 2007 – 8:04 p.m.
DOJ Audit Finds Holes in Terrorist Watch List Clearinghouse
By Matthew M. Johnson, CQ Staff

A critical counterterrorism office — responsible for maintaining, consolidating and distributing terrorist watch list information — continues to struggle to efficiently manage data, possibly creating cracks a threatening person could slip through, according to an audit released Thursday by the Justice Department.

The Office of Inspector General identified 20 watch list records pertaining to suspected or known terrorists that were not catalogued appropriately by the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), making the information unavailable to frontline screening agents, including border patrol officers, visa application reviewers and local police.

The center is a Northern Virginia-based multi-agency clearinghouse, administered by the FBI and designed to provide responses to federal, state and local law enforcement queries 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The multi-agency center is anchored by the Justice, Homeland Security and State departments as well as agencies within the intelligence community.

“It is critical that the TSC further improve the quality of its watch list data because of the consequences of inaccurate or missing information,â€