WASHINGTON – Multiple Federal Air Marshal whistleblowers represented by Empower Oversight shared new information through protected disclosures to Congress about the Quiet Skies program run by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Empower Oversight helped the whistleblowers disclose years of ineffectiveness and wasted resources while urging elected official to protect the whistleblowers and probe the TSA over surveillance of Tulsi Gabbard.
In a letter to members of the House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over the TSA, Empower Oversight president Tristan Leavitt outlined specific abuses about the surveillance of Gabbard and wrote, “To get to the bottom of TSA’s surveillance of Ms. Gabbard, Congress should demand a briefing—classified if necessary—on why such a known individual as Ms. Gabbard was added to Quiet Skies. If Ms. Gabbard truly posed a potential threat, Congress should assess what other notifications should have been made, such as to Ms. Gabbard’s Army Reserve unit. But if Ms. Gabbard—and others like her selected for SMC (Special Mission Coverage) surveillance—pose no threat whatsoever to aviation security, Congress should consider whether to discontinue the Quiet Skies program.”
In the letter, Leavitt summarized some of the most egregious waste and abuses of authority of the controversial Quiet Skies program since its inception, including the most recent addition to the list of people surveilled, Gabbard, who is a former member of Congress, candidate for president of the United States, and current member of the Army Reserves.
Leavitt also wrote: “Since whistleblowers made protected disclosures to the Air Marshal National Council, the media, and the DHS OIG [Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General], TSA had opened a retaliatory investigation into the so-called ‘leak’ of Sensitive Security Information (SSI). Yet the Supreme Court has specifically held that the whistleblower protections established by Congress take precedence over TSA’s ability to hide information it designates as SSI. We will be meeting with the DHS OIG General Counsel and Whistleblower Protection Coordinator on this issue in coming days, and would also appreciate Congress’s assistance in ensuring the courageous Air Marshal whistleblowers who made these disclosures are protected from retaliation.”
In 2018, Air Marshals blew the whistle to the Boston Globe about physical surveillance of people being added to the Quiet Skies program. At the time, Congress and the public were outraged at the extent of the surveillance of ordinary American citizens who were being treated like terrorists.
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General released a report in November 2020 finding that over the three and a half years from October 2015 to February 2019, TSA was unable to confirm that a single passenger added to the Quiet Skies program was confirmed as an aviation security threat. The same report concluded TSA “did not properly plan, implement, and manage the Quiet Skies program[.]”
Leavitt wrote that since the 2020 DHS OIG report, Empower Oversight “[a]ssisted an Air Marshal in blowing the whistle to the Office of Special Counsel and the DHS OIG in 2022, after he learned that his wife had been added to the terrorist Watchlist and assigned SMC, for simply attending President Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. and the Air Marshal National Council has repeatedly attempted to get Congress to investigate TSA over this issue since then. DHS OIG had indicated it was referring the Air Marshal whistleblower’s case to its Office of Investigations but never contacted the whistleblower with a follow-up about TSA’s abuse of authority.”
For a copy of the Empower Oversight letter to congressional committees of jurisdiction, click here.
For a copy of Empower Oversight’s letter August 6, 2024 letter regarding the improper targeting of Americans through the Quiet Skies program, click here.
To read the DHS OIG report, click here.