Shortly after I wrote Terror Watch List Glitches, more disturbing reports about problems with "terror-watch-list"-related systems started popping up. Most were saying that the expected upgrades (worth half-billion dollars!) might not correct the problems and might even create new ones. All the fuss seemed to be about "project RAILHEAD", which is supposed to replace Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE).
I refrained from publishing this post the very next day. There were tons of articles that simply amounted to a bunch of snippets from a congressional memo slapped together, so I decided not to add my voice to the general noise. Instead, I took some time to learn more about TIDE and RAILHEAD, as well as to analyze those claims from a purely technical perspective, leaving out the politics.
