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1 1 (July 20, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govemgr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional_______ Research Service Legal Challenges to the Terrorist Screening Database July 20, 2023 On September 11, 2001, agents of the al Qaeda terrorist organization hijacked commercial airplanes and attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the national headquarters of the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia.... Nearly 3,000 civilians were killed, the Supreme Court observed. In its report on the terrorist attacks and recommendations for how to prevent future attacks, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) found that relevant executive agencies failed to effectively and efficiently share relevant counterterrorism information, including information on individuals known to be or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. The 9/11 Commission advised that the prevention of future attacks would be furthered by pooling and disseminating such information across agencies, both in the high-level operational planning phase and during the points at which government agents may interact with individuals in the field-for example, at the border, in an airport, or during a traffic stop. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), a sensitive but unclassified database consisting of biographical or biometric information on known or suspected terrorists, has become a significant tool for information sharing in this regard. While the federal government has sought to deploy the TSDB in a manner that protects privacy and civil liberties, a number of individuals have raised legal challenges to the TSDB on various constitutional and statutory grounds. This Sidebar summarizes the development of the TSDB (which the government has referred to by other names over time, and for simplicity will be discussed here as the TSDB), the legal authority for the government's creation and use of the TSDB, the variety of legal challenges to the TSDB, and how federal courts have adjudicated these claims. The Sidebar concludes with considerations for Congress. Overview of the Terrorist Screening Database A Failure in Information Sharing The 9/11 Commission investigated the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and sought to identify ways to prevent future attacks from occurring. Among other things, the 9/11 Commission determined that agencies shared counterterrorism information on a limited basis, thus hampering strategic analysis and operational planning. The 9/11 Commission also found that the U.S. government did not find a way of Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11009 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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