Nation’s Terror Database Swells to 325,000 Names

Counterterrorism officials say the number of names in the nation’s central repository of alleged terrorists has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003 to 325,000 names. But does an increase in names actually translate into protecting us from terrorism?

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen are reporting that the National Counterterrorism Center is responsible for the list. The Center was created in 2004 to be the primary counterterrorism agency in the country, Pincus and Eggen say.

The list, they say, “contains a far greater number of international terrorist suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different name spellings or aliases, the true number of separate individuals is estimated to be more than 200,000.”

Pincus and Eggen say U.S. citizens only make up a very small fraction of the names listed, and the vast majority of individuals on the list are non-citizens who do not reside in the US.  An unnamed NCTC official refused to tell the writers how many individuals are actually citizens.

The list, they say, is put together from reports supplied by the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies. It is an attempt by the government to streamline the country’s 26 terrorism-related databases.