Terror watch lists have limited uses, experts say
Tip-offs, data-sharing vital to stopping terrorists, analysts say
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LONDON - Around the world, watch lists are a key but imperfect tool against terrorism.
Experts say simple issues like fickle spelling and incomplete data, as well as deliberate deception and uncooperative countries, all make it possible for a determined terrorist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to slip through the net.
British officials are proud of their border-protecting list, which contains more than 1 million names, including that of Abdulmutallab. That didn't stop the young Nigerian boarding a plane for the United States elsewhere with explosives in his underwear — a stark reminder of the perils of flawed information-sharing and the limits of watch lists.
"It's not difficult to change your identity in the modern world," said Alain Chouet, former chief of the security intelligence service at France's counterintelligence agency, DGSE.
Analysts say intelligence tip-offs, information-sharing and data analysis are also vital to stopping terrorists, and Britain has announced an urgent review of its watch list system in the wake of the Christmas Day attack over Detroit.
E-borders initiative
The British list holds the names of everyone from suspected terrorists and radical clerics to wanted criminals and rejected visa applicants — like Abdulmutallab, who was added after being denied a student visa in May 2009 for applying to a bogus college.
The program, known as E-borders, will eventually check all passengers traveling to or through Britain against the master list. Information comes from police, intelligence services and other sources and is held by the U.K. Border Agency.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said this week that the list had led to almost 5,000 arrests since 2005 and prevented 65,000 people entering Britain in 2009.
"In some countries, there are separate watch lists for security, for policing and crime, for people who have lost their passports and for immigration issues, but an integrated watch list serves us well," Johnson told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College, said the British system was an effective deterrent.
"What you have in U.K. is data mining of anyone in transit, on every single passenger coming into the U.K." Ranstorp said. "So even if you are in transit, and never meet a border guard, it's a hostile environment if you're flying through the U.K."
'10 percent viable'
The list has its limits, though. Names on it are not automatically shared with other countries, although those on a smaller terrorism-related watch list are.
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On Thursday, President Barack Obama announced about a dozen changes designed to fix the system that let Abdulmutallab slip through, including an overhaul of the nation's terrorist watch lists.
Chouet, the former French intelligence official, estimated that lists he saw when working in intelligence were only about "10 percent viable."
"The identity of people outside the European tradition is vague. People can change their names, and there is the problem of transcription into European alphabets."
He used the example of the name Mohamed, which can have different spellings and different transcriptions into English, French or Polish alphabets.
Difficulties with nations
Even passport numbers are only partially viable since passports can be changed, or people can get passports from other countries.
And some countries are more cooperative than others. European Union nations and close allies like the U.S. routinely share information, but Britain's Johnson noted this week that "it is outside Europe that we have the problem."
The Home Office declined to name any uncooperative nations, but said biometric data such as fingerprints, now included on passports and required from all visa holders, would help tighten up the system.
Experts agree biometrics are key to ensuring names on a watch list can be matched to a real individual.
"It's very difficult to fake, and the governments have begun collecting that information massively," said Ranstorp.
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