US government overhauls terror watch list
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The US government has overhauled its terror watch list after a Nigerian whose name was on the list breached security check and brought an explosive device to a U.S. international flight on Christmas Day, said an official on Monday.
"There's already been a rescrubbing of all the different lists, so safety and security measures are moving forward even as the review goes on," said White House Spokesman Bill Burton en route Andrews Air Force Base where President Barack Obama landed after a vocation in Hawaii.
Burton said that the president was expecting a report by the Central Intelligence Agency on the Christmas bombing plot and a meeting with his top advisor on counterterrorism affairs, John Brennan, later on Monday.
The thorough review of the incident would be concluded on Tuesday, when some new information about the government's moves to strengthen security can be available, said the spokesman.
"If you look at the process that we undertook, people moving from the TIDE (Terrorism Identities Datamart Environment) list to the selectee list or the no fly list, probably thousands upon thousands upon thousands of names were scrubbed, and probably dozens were moved to different lists," he told reporters.
Obama has ordered two separate reviews of the Christmas incident, when the suspect brought explosive to a Delta/Northwest flight from the Netherlands to the United States and attempted to launch a bombing attack.
The suspect's name was added to the terror watch list by the U. S. authorities in November when his father reported to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria his potential radical actions against the United States, but the watch list does not automatically bring tighter screening of individuals.
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