Hold onto your boarding passes, folks—Homeland Security just dropped a bombshell about the TSA playing political games with secret watchlists.
The Washington Times reported that under the Biden administration, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and federal air marshals misused surveillance programs to track political opponents, including Jan. 6 protesters, members of Congress, and even folks who balked at COVID mask mandates, often with no evidence of wrongdoing.
Let’s rewind to the timeline of this troubling saga, starting with the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protests. Dozens of participants were slapped onto TSA watchlists, despite Homeland Security later admitting there was no proof of illegal activity. Talk about a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach that’d make even the staunchest bureaucrat blush.
This surveillance overreach didn’t stop at protesters. The Quiet Skies program, shuttered by the Trump administration for failing to thwart any terrorist threats and costing a cool $200 million annually, was revived under Biden—and promptly weaponized, according to critics.
Homeland Security itself called the targeting of non-criminal Jan. 6 attendees “particularly egregious,” with some lingering on lists for months. Contrast that with the TSA’s apparent blind eye toward violent actors during the 2020 George Floyd protests.
As Homeland Security pointed out, those who “burned down cities” and attacked law enforcement somehow dodged the same scrutiny. Seems like selective security is the name of the game.
Then there’s the political targeting of elected officials and public figures. Sen. Rand Paul revealed that three current Republican members of Congress—unnamed but all GOP—were flagged, alongside Tulsi Gabbard, who faced TSA surveillance on multiple trips in 2024 after criticizing Biden and Harris. If speaking your mind gets you a tail at 30,000 feet, what’s next?
Gabbard’s case isn’t just a one-off; she was tracked on at least five flights, even after being marked as “cleared.” That’s the kind of persistence you’d expect in a spy novel, not a government agency meant to keep us safe. It’s hard not to wonder if dissent is the new security threat.
Sen. Rand Paul didn’t mince words, calling Quiet Skies “an unconstitutional dystopian nightmare.” He’s got a point—when air marshals are tasked with shadowing travelers over political disagreements, we’ve strayed far from the mission of stopping actual threats. Secrecy, as Paul noted, is indeed the problem.
Even everyday Americans weren’t spared, with at least two dozen mask mandate resisters labeled as potential dangers.
One was even barred from boarding as an “imminent threat,” despite no record in the government’s terrorist database. Since when does skipping a mask equate to plotting harm?
Take the story of Mark Crowder, a senior air marshal whose disabled wife was wrongly branded a “domestic terrorist” in 2021 for allegedly entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Crowder called it a fabrication for political ends, and she endured surveillance on 13 trips before finally being removed from the list in 2023. That’s two years of unwarranted scrutiny—hardly a trivial oops.
Sen. Josh Hawley weighed in on such cases, labeling them “a sickening violation” of free speech rights. He’s not wrong; punishing Americans for their views or associations isn’t security—it’s suppression with a federal badge.
Adding to the outrage, TSA’s own officials, including the chief privacy officer, raised alarms about these abuses, only to be ignored. Meanwhile, Homeland Security pinned much of the blame on TSA head David Pekoske, reappointed by Biden after being ousted under Trump. Accountability seems to be in short supply at 35,000 feet.
The broader issue, as Abed Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee testified, is the systemic flaw in secret government lists like Quiet Skies or the no-fly list.
These tools, shared across agencies and even private entities, often trap innocent people with vague suspicions and no clear path to appeal. Ayoub nailed it: due process shouldn’t be grounded indefinitely.
Sen. Paul also faced stonewalling when seeking answers about Quiet Skies, with TSA refusing to provide clarity. If even a senator can’t get straight talk, what hope do regular travelers have against this shadowy system? It’s a bureaucratic black box with wings.
