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Washington
The United States government's terrorist watchlist has nearly doubled in just six years. The consolidated database of individuals has not only been quietly expanding in number but also in who it targets, revealed a CBS Reports study released on Thursday (Dec 14). The terrorist watchlist, now known as the Terrorist Screening Dataset, had approximately 120,000 people when it was first launched in Dec 2003.
CBS Reports said that by 2017, the list included 1,160,000 people. And by the end of 2023, the list includes approximately 2 million people. According to government policy, agents must have reasonable suspicion to put someone on the watchlist. However, the policy does not disclose what those suspicions are based on.
'Those on the list are there for a reason'
Monte Hawkins, who helps oversee the watchlisting policy for President Joe Biden said the people on the list were there for a reason. Hawkins, who has served in the National Security Council for every administration since 9/11, noted that a majority number of people on the list were not American citizens or legal permanent residents.
Russ Travers, an intelligence veteran who helped create the watchlist, said that everyone on the list was not a terrorist. "It means there's something that has led a department or agency to say, 'This person needs a closer look'," Travers told the publication.
Travers pointed out that a lot of people in the database were dead that the government didn't know about. As per the report, national security officials have acknowledged that there are people listed in the database whose names should probably be removed, but there isn't enough staff to audit every individual's file regularly.
How people's lives are affected
CBS Reports said that the list has had significant consequences on those who have been a part of it. In numerous civil lawsuits over the last two decades, people on the watchlist described how they believed the database caused them to be stopped from flying home after a vacation, to fail background checks to get employment or to have their phones and computers searched.
Others (on the watchlist) said the list triggered law enforcement agencies to handcuff them at gunpoint, adding they were detained and interrogated by foreign intelligence services.
The report further said that over the years, tens of thousands of innocent people have complained to Washington about being incorrectly treated like terrorist suspects.