U.S Terrorism Database has Doubled since 2010

A U.S. government database of known or suspected terrorists doubled in size in recent years, according to newly released government figures. The growth is the result of intelligence agencies submitting names more often after a near-miss attack in 2009.

There were 1.1 million people in the database at the end of 2013, according to the National Counterterrorism Center, which maintains the information. About 550,000 people were listed in the database in March 2010.

The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, is a huge, classified database of people who are known terrorists, are suspected of having ties to terrorism or in some cases are related to or are associates of known or suspected terrorists. It feeds to smaller lists that restrict people's abilities to travel on commercial airliners to or within the U.S.

The government does not need evidence linking someone to terrorism in order for the person to be included in the database. This is among the reasons the database and subsequent terror watch lists have been criticized by privacy advocates.

An online publication, The Intercept, on Tuesday reported that 40 percent of people on the terrorism watch list -- which is a subset of names in the TIDE database -- were not affiliated with any recognized terrorist organization. The publication cited documents from one year ago.

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