What's the difference between a database and the circular file?

What's-his-face Obama's press secretary was on this morning explaining about how they let the leg bomber on the plane. The government has a 500,000 name data base containing derogatory information. The leg bomber's father called the US embassy to warn us about his son's radicalization. The embassy entered the leg bomber's name into the 500,000 name data base. This ain't much different from putting the name into the circular file.