Homeland Security

U.S. House of Representatives

Homeland Security Select Committee

Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism

Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

Joint Hearing on

"Progress in Consolidating Terrorist Watchlists-the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC)"

Thursday, March 25, 2004

2:00 p.m.

2141 Rayburn

                Thank you, Chairman Gibbons and Chairman Coble, for holding this important hearing-the second hearing the Homeland Security Committee has held jointly with the Judiciary Committee.  I join you in welcoming our witnesses. 

On December 1, 2003, at the President's direction, the Terrorist Screening Center stood-up with the task of providing unified, accurate terrorist screening information to screeners around the country, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through a single node.  The TSC will serve State and local officials, as well as private sector entities that manage critical infrastructure.  It will even serve foreign governments that have entered into immigration agreements with the United States, if they are partners in the global war on terrorism.  But the Terrorist Screening Center's support is particularly important to our nation's first responders, our border protection officials, and the consular officers who adjudicate hundreds of visa applications every day. 

Our overriding objective is, after all, to prevent terrorist attacks.  There, the Terrorist Screening Center - TSC - represents a quantum leap - in this nation's ability to keep terrorists out and to pursue potential terrorists who have managed to get in - for example, by giving law enforcement officers a reliable way to determine whether a person stopped for a routine traffic violation is, based on all the information available to the U.S. Government, involved in some way in terrorist activity.  It also represents another important milestone in tearing down barriers to information sharing between the Intelligence Community and law enforcement officials.

Integrating the data contained on the Government's legacy watch lists is a positive step - it was needed.  Historically, nine Federal agencies maintained 12 disparate watch lists, the contents of which were not accessible across agency lines and were not comprehensively analyzed.  That means we had no efficient way of accessing the information we had - and as a practical matter, what you can't access, you really don't know.  That's one of the hard lessons of the 9/11 attacks. 

But integrating the information on all those lists is a complex task, even in the era of interoperable computer systems and instantly searchable databases - and it must be done right.  And to be the right solution, TSC must not come at the price of the civil rights or First Amendment freedoms of American citizens.  Because we are fighting to preserve our way of life - that's a fundamental part of protecting our nation.  And I believe it has been worth the time it has taken to get TSC done right.

The information collected and maintained on the Government's various watch lists was collected under different authorities for widely divergent purposes and maintained in different formats.  There was no agreed upon set of discriminators to determine whether an individual should be watch-listed.  And the 12 legacy lists, taken together, had hundreds of thousands of names.  They could not just be dumped into some massive, Government database of potential bad-guys.  Each name had to be analyzed to make sure it belonged on TSC's integrated list.   

So at this hearing, we hope to get an update on the TSC's progress and relationship to the Department of Homeland Security.  And, equally important, we hope to be reassured that TSC, and the databases that feed it, will not impinge upon the civil rights and civil liberties to which we, as Americans, are entitled. 

There are also serious questions we must ask:  Is the Terrorist Screening Center the solution for the present - or forever?  Is it structured in the most effective way?  Does it work - is it fast, reliable?  Is it being used by those who need it most?  Can a user get additional information on a TSC name "hit" quickly and reliably?  Is TSC's management and supervision appropriate?  How can it be improved?  Are civil liberties and privacy interests scrupulously safeguarded?  Could a name get on TSC's list erroneously?  If so, how would that be discovered and how corrected, quickly and certainly?

I look forward to hearing from each of the witnesses on these important issues.  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.