Are you a Terrorist or Narcotic Trafficker? Are you sure?

In the past several years, the federal government has begun compiling several new lists of criminal and terrorist individuals, companies and fronts. In addition, the government has made available on the web some lists that have been compiled for decades.

These lists are administered and enforced by The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the Treasury. Their mission statement says their goal is to administer and enforce “economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under US jurisdiction. Many of the sanctions are based on United Nations and other international mandates, are multilateral in scope, and involve close cooperation with allied governments.”

Many private companies have now obtained these lists and created databases. A couple of the more pertinent lists are the

• Specially Designated Nationals List.—(a reference tool providing actual notice of actions by OFAC with respect to Specially Designated Nationals and other persons whose property is blocked, to assist the public in complying with the various sanctions programs administered by OFAC.)
• Anti-Terrorism sanction list
• Narcotics Trafficking sanctions list.

Many of the names on the lists are company names, but many are also individual names. Private companies provide this information to employers so that the employers may screen their applicants against these various lists. So far so good. The problem is that the personal identifying information on many of these lists is scant—many times just a name. And further, some list providers provide a partial name match as a possible match.

As you might expect, many of the terrorist names are common in the Middle East, but not in the United States. (Things are changing though. In England and Wales for 2005, the 23rd most common boy’s name was Mohammed. Muhammad was number 56 and Mohammad was 70th.) If your name is Mohammed or a variant, you may be misidentified.

Misidentification based on the narcotics list is more prevalent in the Untied States because there are more individuals with names of Hispanic than Middle Eastern origin, and the names on the narcotics list are disproportionately Hispanic in origin. For example, within the first few names added to the list on September 28, 2006 were Aguilar Ramirez, Gerardo Antonio, Aguirre Ramos, Jimenez Perez, Jose Julian Bruno and Juvenal Velandia, Jose. (Jose was the 30th most popular boy’s name in the United States in 2005.)

Employers should understand how little identifying information can be used to report a “match.” However, if the you do get a possible match, OFAC has the following advice:

If you have checked a name manually or by using software and find a match, you should do a little more research. Is it an exact name match, or very close? Is your customer located in the same general area as the SDN? If not, it may be a "false hit." If there are many similarities, contact OFAC's "hotline" at 1-800-540-6322 for verification.

Individuals should also understand how they may be misidentified. Needless to say, you’ll have a tougher time getting a job if you are misidentified as a terrorist or narcotics trafficker. Individuals may check the government lists to see if their name (or a similar name) appears on any of the lists by going to http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac.

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