FBI Watchlist Fails to Flag Potential Terrorists
The FBI has been slow to update the national terror suspect watchlist — and the lapses pose real risks to U.S. security, a Justice Department audit has found.
A report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Glenn Fine, found that 12 terror suspects who were either not watchlisted or were slow to be added to the list may have traveled into or out of the United States during the period when they were not placed on the list.
Auditors also found significant delays in taking people off the list once they were no longer considered suspects.
The watchlist, which is used to screen people entering the U.S. and by local law enforcement, contains more than 1.1 million names.
In 15 percent of the cases auditors reviewed, subjects were not nominated to the watchlist, contrary to FBI policy.
In some instances, people with names matching subjects who were not watchlisted — or who were not put on the list in a timely fashion — attempted to cross U.S. borders during the period their names were not placed on the list, according to the report.
"The failure to place appropriate individuals on the watchlist, or the failure to place them on the watchlist in a timely manner, increases the risk that these individuals are able to enter and move freely about the country," the report concluded.
Department of Homeland Security officials did not immediately comment.
In two of every three cases the auditors examined, the FBI failed to update information in the watchlist, as required.
…"We found that the FBI failed to nominate many subjects in the terrorism investigations that we sampled, did not nominate many others in a timely fashion, and did not update or remove watchlist records as required," the report found.
The consolidated terror watchlist was created in 2004 to combine information from many different government agencies. The FBI is charged with managing the list.
The audit follows a 2008 report by the inspector general that found the FBI gave outdated, incomplete and inaccurate information about terror suspects to be added to the watchlist for nearly three years, despite steps taken to prevent errors.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/us_…06/211460.html
I feel safer. How about you? :rolleyes: