By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) - A Muslim civil rights group is calling for a congressional investigation after the U.S. government acknowledged sharing its terrorist watchlist with more than 1,400 private entities such as hospitals and universities.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Wednesday that Congress should probe why the FBI has given such broad access to the list.

The council filed a class-action lawsuit in 2016 challenging the list's constitutionality. It says many people are mistakenly placed on the list and face frequent difficulty in travel and interactions with law enforcement as a result.

In response to the lawsuit, a federal official acknowledged in a court filing that more than 1,400 private entities received access to the list, which contains hundreds of thousands of names.

For years, the government had insisted that it does not generally share the list with private entities.

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