What did the one U.S. homeland security database say to the other?

Nothing -- they've never talked.

This is the conclusion, anyway, after former Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson, a senior Clinton Administration official, said his travel plans have been "significantly" disrupted because his name appears on a U.S. terrorism watchlist.

Robinson, the former head of the Justice Department's criminal division, said he thinks his name matches that of someone added to the government terror list in 2005.

"I suppose if I were convinced that America is a safer place because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it," Robinson said, according to CBS News. "But I doubt it."

A consolidated terror watchlist was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to thwart future plots. But the names of many innocent Americans have ended up on the list as well, causing them to undergo extra security checks, or at worst, prohibiting their air travel altogether.

Some 30,000 Americans have asked the Department of Homeland Security to remove their names from the list, which is maintained by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. About 400,000 individuals are believed to be on the watchlist, 95% of whom are not U.S. citizens or legal residents, according to an FBI spokesman.

How does a former senior government official, who recently had his top-secret security clearances renewed by the FBI, manage to snag a spot on the list? Many things could be at work here: Robinson might just be unlucky and have the same name as a suspected evildoer. Or his name might have been used by a clever terrorist who figured that senior U.S. government officials would never be flagged on a watchlist. Even though, we now know, they are.

Watchlists are truly scary things - necessary perhaps, but nonetheless tools of state control over citizens that have been abused and mismanaged in the past. DHS, FBI and the other security agencies have to start talking more to prevent the terror watchlist from becoming bloated with false positives. Because I don't know what all the other Mark Malseeds out there are up to. And frankly, next time I'm at the airport, I don't want to find out.

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