‘A Comedy of Errors’: Why It’s Time to Get Rid of the So-Called Terrorist Watch List

Published on June 27, 2009

Time to Scratch the List

Not surprisingly, the overwhelming problems with the TSC’s terrorist watch list has provided ammunition to gun lobbyists to criticize the veracity of this week’s GAO study and the legislation it has inspired.
“The integrity of the terror watch list is poor, as it mistakenly contains the names of many men and women, including some high-profile Americans, who have not violated the law,” Chris W. Cox, the National Rifle Association’s head lobbyist, argued in a statement this week. According to Cox, giving the attorney general new authority to block gun sales to anyone on the list would thus mean inevitably denying innocent Americans their Second Amendment rights. In this case, regardless of where one comes down on the gun debate, the NRA has a point.

Likely anticipating such arguments, Sen. Lautenberg’s legislation would allow people to appeal decisions by the attorney general to deny them the ability to purchase a gun. But despite attempts to contact his office, his staff would not say whether the senator would address the proven — and highly publicized — flaws in the terrorist watch list.
They will have to at some point. Basing legislation on such a flawed counterterrorism tool will inevitably undermine it.

More importantly, however, the latest finding on guns only underscores what a useless and counterproductive tool the TSC watch list has proved to be. It’s long past time politicians made it a priority to overhaul the so-called terrorist watch list, if not discontinue it completely.

The ACLU’s Calabrese argues there is no reason the list can’t be retired. After all, it is still a new invention. “We already have lists of dangerous people,” he says. “We have no problem with the FBI’s Most Wanted. Those lists work for a reason. There’s a process in place to do this in the right way.”

But, politically this poses a daunting challenge. Although the ACLU called on President Barack Obama to order a “thorough review” of the terrorist watch list when he was elected, so far, there doesn’t seem to be much proof that his administration will follow through.

“A lot of people seem to think that these problems have been solved now that Barack Obama was elected,” Calabrese says. “But in fact what has happened is that they’ve been institutionalized.”(Bulatlat.com)

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