Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul pressed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Wednesday on why the agency is weaponizing watchlists to spy on political dissidents as terrorists.
In a letter to TSA Administrator David Pekoske, Paul cited recent whistleblower reports disclosing the transportation agency’s surveillance of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and the wife of a federal air marshal through the Quiet Skies program.
“Taken together, these incidents seem 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 wrote.
The whistleblower protection group, Empower Oversight, sent letters to the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month detailing the accusations of misconduct. According to a protected disclosure from a whistleblower whose own wife was “improperly labeled a ‘domestic terrorist,’” the U.S. Federal Air Marshals Service (FAMS) “was improperly targeting individuals for enhanced surveillance” including Gabbard. The whistleblower’s wife was investigated under FAMS “Special Mission Coverage” because “she attended President Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech at the ellipse in Washington D.C.”
“She was nowhere near the U.S. Capitol complex that day, yet her FAMS file falsely stated she ‘unlawfully entered the United States Capitol Building on [Jan. 6, 2021],’” the recent letter read.
“Ultimately, the whistleblower was able to work with the FBI to have his wife’s name removed from the terror watchlist in the spring of 2023,” the letter continued. “Yet clearing his own
