Who Will Watch the Watch List? - The New York Times

"New Haven — When a police officer pulled over Peter Santilli last December in Newtown, Ohio, it seemed like a routine traffic stop. But when the officer ran his data in the law enforcement database, Mr. Santilli’s name came up as a match on a terrorist watch list. The cop “pulled out his weapon immediately,” Mr. Santilli said, and told him to put his hands up.



The police later admitted that it was a false match. It’s likely that the match came from a huge, secretive database called the Known or Suspected Terrorist File. The file is linked to the National Crime Information Center database, which law enforcement officers across the country access over 12 million times a day.



Although less known than watch lists like the no-fly list, the K.S.T. contributes to the secret blacklisting and surveillance of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Without due process protections, the file has the potential to ruin innocent people’s lives, while its size dilutes its effectiveness in tracking actual terrorist threats. Moreover, in light of the continuing debate about whether a no-buy list ought to prevent watchlisted people from purchasing guns, it is vital that we re-examine the accuracy and effectiveness of these lists.



In a study of the nation’s growing watch lists, we reviewed more than 13,000 pages of records about the K.S.T., which the American Civil Liberties Union and the Civil Liberties and National Security Clinic at Yale Law School obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The documents cast light on the rapid growth of the file and its predecessor, the Violent Gangs and Terrorist Organizations File. From about 13,000 entries in 2003, it grew over 2,000 percent in five years — an average of 144 new names being added every day. By 2008, it contained more than 272,000 records. Though the current total is unknown, it’s most likely far larger: In 2013 alone, 468,749 names were submitted to the database, and only 1 percent of those were rejected."



Who Will Watch the Watch List? - The New York Times