HR 4971 Introduced – TSDB Quality Control
Last month Rep Thompson (D,MS) introduced HR 4971 the Terrorist Watchlist Data Accuracy and Transparency Act. The bill would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002, adding a new §210H, Quality assurance reviews of departmental nominations to the terrorist watchlist and other terrorism databases. The new section would require DHS to conduct quality assurance checks of all new data prior to submission to the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB). Periodic audits would also be required. No new funding is authorized by the bill.
Definitions
Subsection (g) provides definitions of three key terms used in this new section. No new technical definitions are provided. Interestingly there is no definition of the term ‘quality assurance review’.
Quality Assurance Checks
The quality assurance checks outlined in this new section would apply to all data being submitted to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center and the National Counterterrorism Center for inclusion in the TSDB or its subsets, including: “the No Fly List, the Selectee List, and watchlist exceptions, or other terrorism databases, or successors of such watchlist or other terrorism databases”. The checks would include:
If all information contained in each such Department nomination is free from error.
If each such Department nomination continues to satisfy the criteria specified in the Watchlisting Advisory Council’s Watchlisting Guidance for such inclusion.
DHS would be required to conduct such quality assurance tests on:
Every initial Department nomination of an individual for inclusion in the terrorist watchlist,
Annually, all Department nominations of United States persons for inclusion in the terrorist watchlist, and
If QA tests on existing listees turns up data errors, the Department would be required to report those discrepancies to the FBI within 24 hours. If a correction or retraction has not been completed within 30-days of such report, the DHS will consult with the FBI or NCTC about “regarding any decision or justification by either such Director, as appropriate, relating to such correction or retraction”.
NOTE: The Democratic Committee staff has produced a short fact sheet about this bill, indicating that the bill is something of priority for Democrats.
Moving Forward
Thompson is the Ranking Member of the House Homeland Security Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there might be some level of bipartisan support for this bill in Committee, but I am not sure that it would be enough to move the bill to the floor of the House under the suspension of the rules process. This bill is not politically important enough to consider under regular order.
Commentary
Last month the GAO published their most recent report on “Terrorist Watchlist: Nomination and Redress Processes for U.S. Persons”. The GAO spent most of their effort reporting on the redress processes for people who feel that they have been improperly been added to the TSDB or it related databases. Many (no one is sure of how many) of those ‘in error’ listings could have been prevented from occurring if there had been data quality assurance processes in place to reduce those questionable listings.
Unfortunately, DHS is not the sole source of potential TSDB data submissions, but trying to address the issue at all submitting organizations would require a much more expansive bill that would include jurisdictional issue with other committees.