American Conservative, August 23, 2024
Gabbard Episode Shows the Surveillance State Strong and Stupid as Ever
By James Bovard
The former Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is apparently the latest Biden critic to be targeted for federal surveillance and harassment. Gabbard, an outspoken opponent of America’s forever wars, is reportedly being stalked by Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals, part of the agency’s Quiet Skies covert operation targeting suspected threats to aviation.
After TSA whistleblowers were quoted confirming the surveillance, Gabbard declared that placing her on the TSA Quiet Skies target list was “clearly an act of political retaliation. It’s no accident that I was placed on the Quiet Skies list the day after I did a prime-time interview warning the American people about…why Kamala Harris would be bad for our country if elected as President.” Gabbard lamented that, despite serving in the U.S. Army for 21 years, “now my government is surveilling me as a potential domestic terrorist.” She groused about “the stress of forever looking over my shoulder, wondering if and how I am being watched, what secret terror watch list I’m on, and having no transparency or due process.” As one Twitter wag quipped, “The only thing Tulsi Gabbard blew up was Kamala’s earlier presidential run. That’s why she on a list.”
On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to TSA chief David Pekoske complaining that the Gabbard surveillance appeared to be “part of a broader pattern in which TSA has repurposed Quiet Skies to surveil individuals based on their political activities, even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing.” Paul requested that TSA speedily turn over “unredacted copies of all current guidelines, criteria, standard operating procedures, and related documents governing the selection of individuals for TSA-managed lists and programs, including the Quiet Skies program.” Paul himself had epic airport clashes with TSA officials in 2012, and the agency has been paying the price ever since.
In response to an inquiry by journalist Matt Taibbi on the Gabbard controversy, TSA issued a formal statement refusing to confirm or deny the targeting of Gabbard: “TSA’s Quiet Skies program uses a risk-based approach to identify passengers and apply enhanced security measures on some domestic and outbound international flights. To safeguard sensitive national security measures, TSA does not confirm or deny whether any individual has matched to a risk-based rule…. Simply matching to a risk-based rule does not constitute derogatory information about an individual.”
In fact, a primary purpose of Quiet Skies is to entitle federal agents to stockpile derogatory information on their targets.
Quiet Skies, first revealed in 2018 by the Boston Globe, hounds travelers on the flimsiest of pretexts. If you fall asleep or use the bathroom during your next flight, those incriminating facts could be added to your federal dossier. Likewise, if you look at noisy children seated nearby with a “cold, penetrating stare,” that may be included on your permanent record. If you fidget, sweat, or have “strong body odor”—boom! the feds are onto you. Air marshals also zero in on “facial flushing,” “gripping/white knuckling bags,” “face touching,” or “wide open, staring eyes,” and “rapid eye blinking.” Heck, even “observing the boarding gate area from afar” triggers alarms by bonehead bureaucrats.
What does it take to become a Quiet Skies target? “The criteria for surveillance appear fluid. Internal agency emails show some confusion about the program’s parameters and implementation,” the Globe noted. Anyone who recently traveled to Turkey was put on the list. Passengers become suspects if they change clothes or shave while in the airport.
After a person makes the Quiet Skies list, a TSA air marshal team is placed on their next flight. Marshals receive “a file containing a photo and basic information” and carefully note whether the suspect’s “appearance was different from information provided” — such as whether they have “gained weight,” are “balding” or “graying,” or have a beard or “visible tattoos.”
TSA air marshals follow targeted travelers, even writing down their license plate numbers. Marshals ascertain whether a “subject was abnormally aware of surroundings.” Does that include noticing the federal agent stalking them in the parking lot?
Marshals record and report any “significant derogatory information” on suspects. If TSA obeyed the Freedom of Information Act, I could probably get some hearty laughs from their files on me. (TSA chief John Pistole denounced one of my articles in 2014, and I’ve had some testy airport encounters in subsequent years.)
TSA claimed the program had robust oversight but no one in Congress knew the program existed until the Boston Globe scoop. Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) blasted Quiet Skies as “the very definition of ‘Big Brother.’”
According to Sonya LaBosco, executive director of the Air Marshal National Council, TSA whistleblowers have confirmed that Gabbard is being heavily surveilled. LaBosco explained that Gabbard would have multiple air marshals on “every flight, every leg,” and canine teams will “maneuver over to the [boarding] gate area…. floating around to try to pick up a scent of something.”
The tracking operation is so blatant that it is reminiscent of the FBI’s tactics against Vietnam War protestors. FBI agents were encouraged to conduct frequent interviews with antiwar activists to “enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles” and “get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox,” according to an FBI memo from that era. But if intimidation is the goal, Tulsi is the wrong woman for the feds to target.
Actually, TSA’s air marshal program is the equivalent of a ticking time bomb waiting for the next boondoggle to explode. TSA claims that it merely places air marshals on flights which are considered high-risk for hijacking or terrorist attacks. But in 2021, insiders revealed that 900 air marshals—almost half the active total—were designated to stand by for flights taken by members of Congress. One veteran air marshal groused that the air marshal D.C. field office “was almost exclusively dedicated to VIP services for Congress.” The Air Marshal National Council formally complained that TSA had turned their program into a “concierge service” and “babysitting” for members of Congress, who exploited the program even for personal flights with no tie to official business.
Quiet Skies is only the latest TSA air marshal pratfall. TSA spends almost $1 billion on air marshals. Though marshals have never stopped a hijacking, they have scored plenty of headlines. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) complained in 2015 about air marshals “disguising themselves as pornography producers, hiring prostitutes and using government-issued phones and other assets to film sexual encounters.” One air marshal was “convicted of abducting a female escort during a layover in the Washington, D.C., area,” one was convicted of bank fraud for attempting to cash an $11 million bogus check, and one was sent to prison after soliciting someone to kill his ex-wife. An air marshal was busted for taking up-skirt photos of women, and numerous air marshals lost their guns on flights and in airports. Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) groused that the air marshal program “has come to be a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the DHS, when 4,000 bored cops fly around the country First Class, committing more crimes than they stop.”
Quiet Skies is not even the tip of the iceberg of federal surveillance follies. In the decades after the 9/11 attacks, federal agencies vastly expanded their ability to target anyone who dissents from Washington’s conventional wisdom. The only certainty is that the outrages and abuses of power have been worse than Americans yet know. Unfortunately, we cannot expect Congress to pull in the reins on their own concierge service.
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