"The Bush administration unveiled plans today for a master database of known and suspected terrorists that would be used for background checks at visa offices, border crossings and airports," reports the Washington Post.
The Terrorist Screening Center -- to be located in Crystal City (Virigina) and run by the FBI -- will cull information from nearly a dozen watch lists held by agencies throughout the federal government in order to provide "one-stop shopping" for U.S. consular officials, airport workers, border agents, local police and some private industries, officials said.
One of the key aims of the screening center is to avoid the type of communication breakdown that occurred prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, when the CIA placed two of the future hijackers on a terrorist watch list but failed to immediately notify the FBI and immigration authorities. By the time the other agencies were notified in August 2001, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi had already entered the United States.
