House Committee Questions Effectiveness Of "Terror Watch List"

Washington, D.C. - The House Homeland Security Committee grilled government officials Thursday about the government's "Terror Watch List," with some charging that the list has grown too large to be effective.

According to the Government Accountability Office, in May of this year, the list contained nearly 755,000 people. The American Civil Liberties Union says it has already grown since then to 860,000 -- and counting.

"We've stopped some really bad people from getting into our country," Committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, said during Thursday's hearing, adding that we've also "heard growing concerns about the quality of some of the data."

Rep. Thompson said that one of his friends and colleagues, as well as some of their children, have appeared on the list.

"We can do better -- and we have to do better -- than to have a system that flags United States Congressmen and 2 year olds as potential terrorists."

People who appear on the Terror Watch list face a range of responses, depending on their circumstances, from a brief secondary screening to arrest.

Directors from various divisions within the Department of Homeland Security, representatives from the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general of the Department of Justice answered lawmaker's questions at today's hearing, which lasted approximately four hours. Although most of them touted the effectiveness of the list and discussed recent improvements, all recognized the shortcomings of it's size.

The ACLU has been particularly critical of the size of the list. "If finding a terrorist is like finding a needle in a haystack, the Terrorist Screening Center has been hard at work creating a bigger haystack, by adding thousands of new names with no end in sight," said Tim Sparapani, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel. "Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, the list is about to hit the one million mark."

Created by the Bush administration after the 2001 attacks, the watch list is used to screen airline passengers and people pulled over in routine traffic stops for suspected terrorist activity. Authorities estimate it is used to screen approximately 270 million people a month.