Police didn't know how the FBI wanted watchlist hits handled
Summary
Two GAO reports examine opposite ends of the same federal terrorist watchlist system. One, made public in January 2026, found 23 of 26 nonfederal law enforcement entities GAO interviewed weren't familiar with the FBI's outreach on how to handle a watchlist encounter, and that the FBI doesn't require states to train officers on watchlist policy at all. The other, made public in August 2025, found that of 289 Americans who formally asked to be cleared from watchlist-related travel problems, 7% turned out to have been misidentified -- and that 23 of the 24 recommendations GAO made to fix the nomination and redress system in an earlier report were still open.
Local police are supposed to be the watchlist's eyes and ears
When an officer runs someone's name during a traffic stop or other routine encounter, the National Crime Information Center can return an automated notice: this person may be a match to the terrorist watchlist. The officer is instructed to call the 's Threat Screening Center to confirm. Over fiscal years 2019 through 2024, 2,198 nonfederal law enforcement entities across all 50 states, DC, and four tribal agencies reported watchlist matches this way -- about 5% of all positive watchlist encounters nationwide.
interviewed officials representing 55 nonfederal law enforcement entities across four states, in 26 separate interviews. In 12 of those 26, officials said their officers were not consistently reporting watchlist encounters to the even when the situation warranted it. In 13 of 26, officials didn't believe all of their officers were prepared to handle one at all.
View data as table
| Not familiar with FBI outreach activities | 23 |
|---|---|
| No current reference materials | 24 |
| Said officers weren't consistently reporting | 12 |
The does run outreach -- presentations at conferences, department visits, a reference video, a one-page guide to handling codes -- but 23 of the 26 interviewed entities said they weren't familiar with any of it, and 24 of 26 said they had no current reference materials. The 's own event log shows why: outreach activity swung from 13 events in fiscal 2020 to zero in fiscal 2021 (a pandemic gap) to a scattered handful most years since, never reaching double digits again until 2023's 12 events.
View data as table
| FY2019 | 3 |
|---|---|
| FY2020 | 13 |
| FY2021 (no events, COVID-19) | 0 |
| FY2022 | 4 |
| FY2023 | 12 |
| FY2024 | 9 |
Training is where the gap turns structural rather than just a resourcing problem. States that want access to the National Crime Information Center must sign a user agreement with the 's Criminal Justice Information Services division, which sets minimum training requirements and audits state compliance every three years. But CJIS does not require those state training programs to cover terrorist watchlist policy at all, and its audits don't check whether they do. In 16 of 26 interviews, officials said they didn't know of any current training on the watchlist reaching their officers. recommended the build a real communication plan with measurable goals, and start reviewing what states actually teach; the concurred with all three of 's recommendations, after narrowed one that said would be too resource-intensive as originally written.
When the watchlist gets it wrong, fixing it is slow going
The other end of the system is what happens when a person believes they've been wrongly caught up in the watchlist. U.S. persons who run into travel problems -- delayed boarding, denied boarding, repeated extra screening -- can file with the Department of Homeland Security's Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, known as TRIP. From December 2021 through September 2023, about 20,000 people filed TRIP inquiries of all kinds; only 289, or roughly 1.5%, actually involved the terrorist watchlist.
Of those 289 watchlist-related cases, 171 -- 59% -- ended with no change to the person's status at all. Eighty-eight, 31%, got removed from the watchlist. Nine had their status downgraded to a less restrictive tier. And 21 people, 7% of the total, turned out to have been misidentified the entire time -- mistaken to be on the watchlist when they were not actually on it.
View data as table
| No change to watchlist status | 171 |
|---|---|
| Removed from watchlist | 88 |
| Misidentified as being on the watchlist | 21 |
| Status downgraded | 9 |
For the small number of people specifically fighting to get off the No Fly List, the path is narrower still. Nine people used TRIP's three-stage Enhanced Redress Process to formally request the reasons for their No Fly status between December 2021 and September 2023. One was downgraded to a less restrictive list. Eight cases were still active as of the report's cutoff. Only one person escalated all the way to the final stage -- a direct administrative appeal to the Administrator -- and that case was closed without removing the person from the list.
Other paths for information or redress exist on paper -- a Freedom of Information Act request, a federal lawsuit, a complaint to the or inspector general, the or ombudsman's office -- but according to and officials, none of them typically change or even disclose a person's watchlist status; offices generally won't confirm or deny it, and the ombudsman offices just redirect people back to TRIP.
's March 2025 report on this system made 24 recommendations to seven federal agencies -- covering nomination accuracy, redress timeliness, and quality control. Every agency agreed with every recommendation directed at it. By August 2025, only one had actually been closed as implemented; the other 23 were still open.
The takeaway
- Most local police checked didn't know how the wanted them to handle a watchlist hit. 23 of 26 interviewed entities weren't familiar with outreach, 24 of 26 had no current reference materials, and 's own training rules for states don't require watchlist content at all.
- When Americans ask to be cleared, most don't get cleared. Of 289 watchlist-related redress cases, 59% ended with no change, and 7% -- 21 people -- turned out to have been misidentified the whole time.
- The fixes already proposed are mostly still sitting there. All seven agencies agreed to 's 24 recommendations from March 2025; by August 2025, 23 of them remained open.
The nonfederal law enforcement outreach and training findings are from -26-108650, 'Terrorist Watchlist: Should Improve Outreach Efforts to Nonfederal Users' (public version released January 12, 2026), read directly and in full. The redress-outcome and recommendation-status findings are from -25-108349, 'Terrorist Watchlist: Nomination and Redress Processes for U.S. Persons' (August 14, 2025), also read directly and in full. Both examine the -run terrorist watchlist system but at opposite ends -- how nonfederal officers report encounters versus how wrongly flagged Americans seek correction -- and were not cross-referenced by their authors.
Sources(2) ▾
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Terrorist Watchlist: FBI Should Improve Outreach Efforts to Nonfederal Users (2026-01-12) — -26-108650, the public version of a sensitive August 2025 report, examining whether 's Threat Screening Center ensures nonfederal (state/local) law enforcement properly reports and handles terrorist watchlist encounters -- the front end of the watchlist system. A distinct facet from doc-gao-108349, which examines the back end: what happens when the watchlist wrongly flags a U.S. person and how redress works. Read in full directly from the PDF via the Wayback mirror (direct gao.gov fetch blocked with HTTP 403). gao.gov · original document
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Terrorist Watchlist: Nomination and Redress Processes for U.S. Persons (2025-08-14) — -25-108349, the public Q&A version of a sensitive March 2025 report (-25-106333SU), examining how U.S. persons are nominated to and can seek redress from the terrorist watchlist -- the back end of the same system doc-gao-108650 examines (front-end law-enforcement reporting/training). Read in full directly from the PDF via the Wayback mirror (direct gao.gov fetch blocked with HTTP 403). gao.gov · original document
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The 's Threat Screening Center runs the federal terrorist watchlist from two directions at once: it depends on local police to report encounters accurately, and it's responsible for correcting the record when the watchlist gets a person wrong. Two reports examined each side. The January 2026 report⧉ found 23 of 26 nonfederal law enforcement entities interviewed weren't familiar with the 's outreach on handling watchlist encounters, and that the doesn't require states to train officers on watchlist policy at all. The August 2025 report⧉ found that of 289 Americans who formally sought redress for watchlist-related travel problems, 7% had been misidentified -- and that 23 of the 24 recommendations made in an earlier report to fix the nomination and redress system were still open.