WASHINGTON – The nation's new centralized database for terror suspects is missing some names that should be in it and has inaccurate information about others, the Justice Department inspector general said Monday.
In addition, in one instance last year, someone on the government's no-fly list (search) was allowed to board a domestic airline flight because of poor coordination between the FBI-run Terrorist Screening Center (search) and other law enforcement agencies, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said.
The center, created in September 2003 by a presidential directive, combines about a dozen databases from nine agencies that any government official can consult to check the name of someone who has been screened or stopped.
"While the TSC had successfully created and deployed a consolidated watch list database, the TSC has not ensured that the information in that database is complete and accurate," Fine said in a 184-page audit.
Some data on publicly known terrorists was missing as was information on other people that that authorities could use to assess the threat posed in an encounter, Fine said.
The system also has mistakenly identified people as being in the database, he said.
Some lawmakers had criticized the Bush administration for taking too long to get the database up and running. Civil libertarians have pointed out potential danger in duplicate or incorrect names causing trouble for innocent people.
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