Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

US Terrorist Watchlist Upgrade More Flawed Than Current One, Says Rep.

by Tim Stevens on September 7, 2008 at 02:42 PM

Government Terror Watchlist Upgrade Going Disastrously Wrong?
We've all heard the tales of woe from some travelers who've been delayed or even apprehended at airports because they had names vaguely similar to those of some terrorist somewhere. They've been victims of the government's current aged and misbehaving terrorist watchlist. The good news is that there's a $500-million (and counting) upgrade in process that will replace the current system. The bad news is that one government official is saying the new system is even worse than the original.

Democratic Representative Brad Miller from North Carolina has been given a preview of the new system and recently concluded that "if actually deployed will leave our country more vulnerable than the existing yet flawed system in operation today." It's called Railhead and is supposed to help inter-agency searches and reduce the false-positives that have been angering so many. However, according to Miller, it actually makes searching across agencies even harder, and while it would prevent many with names similar to known terrorists from being flagged, it makes it even more difficult to tag real terrorists.

The National Counterterrorism Center, the group overseeing Railhead's development, has naturally said Miller doesn't know what he's talking about and has had "no interaction with the NCTC or the Intelligence Community on the Railhead Program." It's not clear when Railhead is scheduled to go live, but if Miller's claims prove to be true, it could be quite some time. [From: ars technica]

Tags: nctc, railhead, terrorist, travel, watchlist

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular