National Security Branch > Terrorist Screening Center > Safeguarding Civil Liberties
Safeguarding Civil Liberties
The Terrorist Screening Center's primary responsibility is to ensure that the identity data that is already known to the U.S. government is held in one location where it can be queried by those who need it, including federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement, and border control officers in certain foreign countries. While doing so, the TSC is dedicated to ensuring that data is maintained in a manner consistent with protecting privacy and civil liberties.
The TSC regularly conducts comprehensive and case-specific quality assurance reviews of its data to ensure that terrorist identity data meets the U.S. government's substantive criteria for watch listing and is thorough, accurate, and current. The TSC also participates in redress procedures established by agencies that perform terrorist screening to ensure that complaints and misidentifications are addressed and any errors are corrected.
The TSC has no authority to conduct intelligence collection or other operations. The TSC does not collect intelligence, but only receives identity information collected by other governmental entities authorized by law to do so, with their own policies and procedures to protect privacy rights and civil liberties. The TSC maintains information on known or appropriately suspected terrorists only; it does not maintain information on persons who have no nexus to terrorism.
