[JURIST] The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR) [advocacy website] Tuesday criticized the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) [official website] for its terrorist watchlist containing more than 6,000 names. A new LCCR report [text, PDF] entitled "The OFAC List: How a Treasury Department Terrorist Watchlist Ensnares Everyday Consumers," said the Treasury Department's publicly-posted List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons [text, PDF] often leads businesses such as credit bureaus and health insurers to incorrectly deny services to legal US citizens with similar names. The list specifies "designated parties with whom US persons are prohibited from providing services" [OFAC backgrounder] but often results in overbroad and incorrect screening, according to the report.

LCCR is urging the Treasury Department to rectify problems in the screening process to safeguard citizens' civil rights [JURIST news archive]. AP has more.