Terrorist Watchlist Modification Review Act — Full text

Section 1. Short title

This Act may be cited as the Terrorist Watchlist Modification Review Act.

(1) Notification required

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees notice of any material change to a policy or procedure relating to the terrorist watchlist or the transnational organized crime watchlist, including any change to the policy or procedure for adding or removing a person from either watchlist. Each notification under this subsection shall include a summary of the material changes to such policy or procedure.

(2) Timing of notification

Each notification required under paragraph (1) shall be submitted not later than 30 days after the date on which a material change described in paragraph (1) takes effect.

(b) Requests by appropriate committees

Not later than 30 days after receiving a request from an appropriate congressional committee, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall submit to such committee all guidance in effect as of the date of the request that applies to or governs the use of the terrorist watchlist or the transnational organized crime watchlist.

(c) Definitions

In this section:

(1) Appropriate congressional committees

The term appropriate congressional committees means—

(A) the congressional intelligence committees;

(B) the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and the House of Representatives;

(C) the Committees on the Judiciary of the Senate and the House of Representatives; and

(D) the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives.

(2) Terrorist watchlist

The term terrorist watchlist means the Terrorist Screening Dataset or any successor or similar watchlist.

(3) Transnational organized crime watchlist

The term transnational organized crime watchlist means the watchlist maintained under the Transnational Organized Crime Actor Detection Program or any successor or similar watchlist.

(a) Report

Not later than January 31, 2026, and annually thereafter for two years, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on known or presumed United States persons who are included on the terrorist watchlist.

(b) Contents

Each report required under subsection (a) shall include, with respect to the preceding calendar year, the following information:

(1) The total number of persons who were included on the terrorist watchlist as of January 1 and the total number of such persons included as of December 31.

(2) The total number of known or presumed United States persons who were included on the terrorist watchlist as of January 1 and the total number of such persons included as of December 31, including with respect to each of those dates—

(A) the number of known or presumed United States persons who were included on a no fly list;

(B) the number of known or presumed United States persons who were included on a selectee list for additional screening;

(C) the number of known or presumed United States persons who were included on the terrorist watchlist as an exception to a reasonable suspicion standard and who are not subject to additional screening, but who are included on the list to support specific screening functions of the Federal Government;

(D) the name of each terrorist organization with which the known or presumed United States persons are suspected of being affiliated and the number of such persons who are suspected of affiliating with each such terrorist organization; and

(E) an identification of each Federal agency that nominated the United States persons to the terrorist watchlist and the number of such persons nominated by each Federal agency.