Watch List or....What?

Every now and then, a story about the government's terror watch list crops up in the news. Usually, it's not about a terrorist being apprehended by use of the list, but rather about some innocent American detained at an airport somewhere because his or her name matched one on it. So it is with a man named Jim Robinson, who says he's been hassled numerous times at airports. There's one difference with him, however. He's a former Assistant Attorney General who just had his top-secret security clearances renewed last year.

Robinson says the list ought to be eliminated, because he's one of possibly hundreds of thousands of people who get stopped and inconvenienced due to an improper match. Yet the government calls the list one of its most important tools in the war on terror. So who is right here? As of October 2006, over 30,000 people had asked the government to clear their names from the list. Some may remember a few years ago that a two year old child was detained in Houston because his name matched one on the list.

On top of that, as many as 20 suspected terrorists were left off the list due to a technology glitch. There isn't even agreement on how many names are actually on the list. The ACLU estimates 1 million. The government says no more than 400,000. One thing is clear. It's time for a little transparency here.

The government needs to tell the American people how many names are on the terror watch list.  It also needs to detail its efforts to see to it innocent people aren't wrongly detained simply because their name matches one on the list. Just as important, the government needs to convince people the list actually does what they say it does, that is, keep terrorists out of the country.

This isn't too much to ask.