Watch List Essay Example

Watch List Essay â€Å"Trouble with the Terrorist Watch List Database† 1. Please read the case study that starts on the next page. 2. Answer all 5 questions below. 1. What Information Systems concepts are illustrated in this case? 2. Why was the consolidated terror watch list created? What are the communication benefits of the list? (Comm) 3. Describe some of the weaknesses of the watch list. What management, organization, and technology factors are responsible for these weaknesses? 4.What steps would you take to correct some of the weaknesses identified in question 3? 5. Do you believe that the watch list represents a significant threat to individual’s privacy or Constitutional rights? Why or why not? Discuss the importance of business communication ethics in this case. Chapter 6 Foundations of Business Intelligence: Databases and .. ,? ~;,,,:,~,,:,::q7 !69 , , ~' ~~ ~ Y)~ ~ , . Trouble with the TerJorist Watch l. ist DatabaSc:! t~~A;jAt1IHt . w~ ~ , †¢ †¢. . ~1 :, , _ ~ ,1 eASE STUDY ,, d: , ,~ ~ ,. n the aftermath ofthe 9-11 attacks, both critics and defenders of the information systems employed by the U. S. intelligence community united to help analyze where things went wrong and how to prevent future terrorist incidents. The FBIs Thrrorist Screening Center, or TSC, was established to organize and standardize information about suspected terrorists between multiple government agencies into a single list to enhance communication between agencies.A database of suspected terrorists known as the terrorist watch list was born from these efforts in 2003 in response to criticisms that multiple agencies were maintaining separate lists and that these agencies lacked a consistent process to share relevant information concerning the individuals on each agencys list. Records in the TSC database contain sensitive but unclassified information on terrorist identities, such as name and date ofbirth, that can be shared with other screening agencies. Classified information about the people in the watch list is maintained in other law enforcement and intelligence agency databases.Records for the watch list database are provided by two sources: the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provides identifying information on individuals with ties to international terrorism. The FBI provides identifying information on individuals with ties to purely domestic terrorism. These agencies collect and maintain terrorist information and nominate individuals for inclusion in the TSCs consolidated watch list. They are required to follow strict procedures established by the head of the agency concerned and approved by the U. S. Attorney General.TSC staff must review each record submitted before it is added to the database. An individual will remain on the watch list until the respective department or agency that nominated that person to the list determines that the person should be removed fr om the list and deleted from its database. The watch list database is updated daily with new nominations, modifications to existing records, and deletions. The list has grown to over 750,000 records since its creation and is continuing to grow at a rate of 200,000 records each year since 2004. lnforn:ation on the list is distributed to a wide range of gow:rn- I ent agency systems for use in efforts to deter or detect the movements of known or suspected terrorists, including the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), 1tansportation Security Administration (TSA), U. S. Department of Homeland Security, State Department, U. S. Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, U. S. Marshals Service, and the White House, among others. Airlines use data supplied by the TSA system in their NoFly and Selectee lists for prescreening passengers, while the U. S. Customs and Border Protection system uses the watch list data to help screen travelers entering the United States.The State Departmen t system screens applicants for visas to enter the United States and U. S. residents applying for passports, while state and local law enforcement agencies use the FBI system to help with arrests, detentions, and other criminal justice activities. Each of these agencies receives the subset of data in the watch list that pertains to its specific mission. For example, records on U. S. citizens and lawful permanent residents are not exported to the State Department system for screening visa applicants because these individuals would not apply for a U. S. visa.All of these databases require certain minimum biographic or identifying data to accept records from the consolidated watch list. When an individual makes an airline reservation arrives at a U. S. port of entry, applies for a U. S. visa, or is stopped by state or local police within the United States, the frontline screening agency or airline conducts a name-based search of the individual against the records in the terrorist watch list database. When the computerized name-matching system generates a hit (a potential name match) against a watch list record, the airline or agency will review each potential match.The agency or airline is supposed to resolve any obvious mismatches that crop up. Matches that are clearly positive or exact matches that are inconclusive (uncertain or difficult to verify) are referred to the applicable screening agencys intelligence or operations center and to the TSC for closer examination. In turn, TSC checks its databases and other sources, including classified databases maintained by the NCTC and FBI, to confirm whether the individual is a positive, negative, or inconclusive match to the watch list record.TSC creates a daily report summarizing all J 270 Part Two Information Technology Infrastructure positive matches to the watch list and distributes them to numerous federal agencies. While the unification of various terrorism watch lists has been a positive step towards streamlin ing the process oflocating and apprehending terrorists, the project has been a slow and painstaking one, requiring the integration of at least 12 different databases. ! Wo years after the process ofintegration took place, 10 of the 12 databases had been processed.The remaining two databases (the u. s. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Automatic Biometric Identification System and the FBIs Integrated Fingerprint Identification System) are both fingerprint databases, and not technically watch lists. There is still more work to be done to optimize the lists usefulness. The TSCs list has introduced new issues and concerns regarding the adequacy ofthe information systems involved in the maintenance and usage of terrorism-related data.Reports from both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Office of the Inspector General confirm that the list contains inaccuracies and that policies for nomination and removal from the lists are not uniform between governmental departments. There has also been public outcry resulting from the size of the list and well-publicized incidents of obvious non-terrorists finding that they are included on the list.Information about the process for inclusion on the list must necessarily be carefully protected if the list is to be effective against terrorists; if the algorithms behind the list were public knowledge, terrorists could more easily avoid detection, defeating the lists purpose. On the other hand, for innocent people who are unnecessarily inconvenienced, the inability to ascertain how they came to be on the list is upsetting. Given the lists large size and constant growth rate one major criticism is that the criteria for inclusion on the list may be too minimal.While the specific criteria for inclusion on the list are not public knowledge, government agencies populate their watch lists by performing wide sweeps of information gathered on travelers, using many misspellings and alternate variations of the names of suspe cted terrorists. This often leads to the inc! usion of people that do not belong on watch lists, known as false positives. It also results in some people being listed multiple times under different spellings of their names, so the 750,000 records do not correspond to 750,000 different individuals.Reports indicate that certain individuals may have as many I as 50 different records on the list due to various aliases and alternate spellings of their names. From December 2003 through May 2007, individuals were positively matched to watch lists 53,000 times. Many individuals were matched multiple times. While these selection cliteria may be effective for tracking as many potential terrorists as possible, they also lead to many more erroneous entries on the list than if the process required more finely-tuned information to add new entries.Notable examples of false positives include U. S. Marine Daniel Brown, who was stopped at the airport for additional screening after an 8-month tour in Iraq; senator Ted Kennedy, who has been repeatediy delayed in the past because his name resembles an alias once used by a suspected terrorist; and John Anderson, a 6-year old boy who was stopped at an airport for additional investigation despite his young age. Like Kennedy, Anderson may have been added because his name is the same or similar to a different suspected terrorist.These incidents call attention to the quality and accuracy of the data in the TSC consolidated watch list. In June 2005, a report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General found inconsistent record counts, duplicate records, and records that lacked data fields or had unclear sources for their data. Although TSC subsequently enhanced its efforts to identifY and correct incomplete or inaccurate watch list records, the Inspector General noted in September 2007 that TSC management of the watch list still showed some weaknesses.Critics of the list question whether or not a list that will soo n grow to over a million entries could have any real usefulness or significance in apprehending terrorists. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been a vocal critic of the size of the list, claiming that it harasses and needlessly violates the privacy of thousands of people in an effort to monitor the movements of a decidedly smaller group of suspects. Senator Joe Lieberman, the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said of the list that serious hurdles remain if it is to be as effective as e need it to be. Some of the concerns stem from its rapid growth, which could call into question the quality ofthe list itself. Given the option between a list that tracks every potential terrorist at the cost of unnecessarily tracking some innocents, and a list that fails to track many terrorists in an effort to avoid tracking innocents, many would choose the list that tracked every terrorist despite the drawbacks. But to make matters worse for those already inconvenienced by Ch apter 6 Foundations of Business Intelligence: Databases and Information Management 71 wrongful inclusion on the list, there is currently no simple and quick redress process for innocents that hope to remove themselves from it. The number of requests for removal from the watch list continues to mount, with over 24,000 requests recorded (about 2,000 each month) and only 54% of them resolved. The average time to process a request in 2008 is 40 days, which, although a mild improvement from 44 days in November 2007, is not fast enough to keep pace with the number of requests for removal coming in.As a result, lawabiding travelers that inexplicably find themselves on the watch list are left with no easy way to remove themselves from it. In February 2007, the Department of Homeland Security instituted its Itaveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) to help people that have been erroneously added to terrorist watch lists remove themselves and avoid extra screening and questioning. John Anderson s mother claimed that despite her best efforts, she was unable to remove her son from the watch lists.Senator Kennedy reportedly was only able to remove himself from the list by personally bringing up the matter to Thm Ridge, then the Director of the Department of Homeland Security. Security officials say that mistakes such as the one that led to Anderson and Kennedys inclusion on no-fly and consolidated watch lists occur due to the matching of imperfect data in airline reservation systems with imperfect data on the watch lists. Many airlines dont include gender, middle name, or date ofbirth in their reservations records, which increases the likelihood offalse matches.While government agencies have been able to synchronize their data into a single list, there is still more work to be done to integrate that list with those maintained by airlines, individual states, and other localities using more information to differentiate individuals. The TSA is continuing to update their screenin g process so that the government, not individual airlines, is responsible for matching travelers to watch lists. Privacy is yet another concern surrounding the watch list.One way to improve screening and help reduce the number of people erroneously marked for additional investigation would be to use a more sophisticated system involving more personal data about individuals on the list. The TSA is developing just such a system, called Secure Flight, but it has been continually delayed due to privacy concerns regarding the sensitivity and safety of the data it would collect. Other similar surveillance programs and watch lists, such as the NSAs attempts to gather information about suspected terrorists, have drawn criticism for potential privacy violations.Additionally, the watch list has drawn criticism because of its potential to promote racial profiling and discrimination. Some allege that they were included by virtue of their race and ethnic descent, such as David Fathi, an attorney for the ACLU of Iranian descent, and Asif Iqbal, a U. S. citizen of Pakistani decent with the same name as a Guantanamo detainee. Outspoken critics of U. S. foreign policy, such as some elected officials and university professors, have also found themselves on the list. A report issued in March 2008 by DOJ Inspector General Glenn A.Fine and reports from the GAO also indicated that the FBI lacked standard and consistent procedures for nominatiug individuals to the list, perfOlming modifications to information, and relaying those changes to other governmental offices. The FBI sometimes delayed updating the list with new information or removing people from the list who were no longer deemed a threat. Nominations from FBI field offices were sometimes inaccurate or incomplete. FBI field offices submitted names of people who were not subjects ofterrorism investigations directly to the NCTC, bypassing the required headquarters review that could catch errors.FBI officials claim that the bu reau has made improvements, and now requires field office supervisors to review watch-list nominations for accuracy and completeness. Some non-FBI offices, including the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Thbacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); and others reported that they did not believe themselves to be a part of the watch list information process, or that they disagreed with the FBI over what constituted terrorist activity.Many DOJ offices acquire terrorism-related information that would help the FBI in populating the watch list, but share that information in an informal way and sometimes not at all. Improved coordination between the FBI and other intelligence agencies would go a long way towards improving the quality and efficacy of the terror watch list. The TSC is taking actions to improve watch list data and procedures for managing these data. The sooner, the better-in early 2008 it was revealed that 20 known terrorists were not correctly listed on 72 PartTwo Information Technology Infrastructure the consolidated watch list (whether these individuals were able to enter the U. S. as a result is unclear). Sources: Bob Egelko, Watch-list Name Confusion Causes Hardship, San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 2008; Siobhan Gorman, NSAs Domestic Spying Grows as Agency Sweeps Up Data, The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2008; Ellen Nakasliima, Reports Cite Lack of Uniform Policy for Terrorist Watch List, The Washington Post, March 18, 2008; Scott McCartney, When Your Name is Mud at the Airport, The Wall Street Journal,January 29, 2008; Audrey Hudson, Airport Watch List NowReviewed Often, The Washington Times, April 11, 2008; Mimi Hall, 15,000 Want Off the U. S. Terror Watch List, USA Today, November 8, 2007 and Terror Watch List Swells to More Than 755,000, USA The/ay, October 23, 2007; Justice Department Report Tells of Flaws in Terrorist Watch List, CNN. com, September 7, 2007; Burt Helm, The Terror Watch Lists Tangle, Businessweek. com, M ay 11, 2005, Paul Ro «enzweig and Jeff Jonas, Correcting False Positives: Redress and the Watch List Conundrum,The Heritage Foundation, June 17, 2005.