DHS has no formal process to add names to terrorist watchlist
In fact, more than 95 percent of the "nominations" to the watchlist are made by the FBI, Department of State, Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA.
"The Department of Homeland Security has made very few nominations to the consolidated terrorist watchlist because its components are rarely originators of derogatory information linking persons to terrorist activities," explained a report submitted last month by the DHS Inspector General about the bureaucratic procedures used by DHS to make such nominations.
Perhaps for that reason, DHS does not even have in place an "overarching policy" that guides its various components on processing such nominations, said the IG’s report.
DHS components are certainly "consumers" of terrorist watchlist information. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) consults the watchlist as it processes about 1.1 million passengers and pedestrians at U.S. ports of entry each day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) coordinates the investigation of watchlist individuals with the FBI. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) taps the watchlist as it consider approximately six million applications and petitions each year. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checks the watchlist against passenger manifests as it examines more than 50,000 commercial flights a day.
Nonetheless, concluded the IG, "DHS does not have a management directive, quality control process, or training program for the nomination process."
Under a 2004 executive order, all government departments and agencies that possess non-domestic terrorism information are required to immediately notify the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which serves as the principal advisor to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Such terrorist-related information is placed in a central repository maintained by the NCTC known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE.
Meanwhile, the FBI compiles its own information about domestic terrorism suspects.
A different organization run by the Department of Justice, the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), has been given the responsibility to maintain and consolidate the federal government’s integrated terrorist watchlist. The Terrorist Screening Center accomplishes this task by tapping the TIDE database regarding international terrorist information and the FBI’s database regarding domestic terrorism information.
"The TSC also provides updates on terrorists to operational systems used by other government agencies for screening purposes," said the DHS IG’s report.
A portion of the names in the TIDE database are included in the TSC’s conmsolidated watchlist. The TSC then transmits those names and identifiers to what’s called the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which is consulted regularly by CBP officers at U.S. ports of entry. "When an individual being inspected appears to have a matching record, the event is referred to as a TIDE encounter," explained the report.
The DHS Inspector General, Richard Skinner, undertook the examination of his department’s procedures for nominating terrorism suspects to the watchlist -- along with 10 other departmental inspectors general who looked at their respective agencies -- at the request of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (currently headed by retired Vice Admiral Michael McConnell).
After four months of fieldwork in 2007, and interviews with officials of 11 DHS components, the DHS Inspector General arrived at two recommendations:
• The DHS Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis (currently Charles Allen) should issue department-wide guidance governing the DHS watchlist nomination process;
• The same DHS official should develop protocols for sharing watchlist guidelines already issued by the National Counterterrorism Center and the Terrorist Screening Center to all DHS components.
In a memorandum dated January 28, 2008, Charles Allen called the IG’s report "an accurate overview of the watchlist nomination process." Allen also urged that subsequent IG reviews focus on the "quality and integrity of the existing watchlist" as well as the "redress process for removing names from the watchlist."
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