Breaking: Jordan's Weaponization Committee Investigating Quiet Skies for Politicization After Concerns About Gabbard

by: Wendi Strauch Mahoney
08/21/2024
Source: UncoverDC
08/21/2024

On Wednesday morning, Breanna Morello obtained a letter from Chairman of the Judiciary, Rep. Jim Jordan, concerning the alleged "weaponization of federal surveillance powers." The Judiciary Committee is requesting "all documents and communications between and among TSA or other executive branch agencies or officials referring or relating to surveillance of former Representative Tulsi Gabbard or other federal elected or appointed officials for the period January 20, 2021, to the present." The letter follows an Aug. 4, 2024, breaking story from UncoverDC and Breanna Morello exposing active surveillance of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as a part of TSA's Quiet Skies program.

The Judiciary is concerned that executive branch agencies may be weaponizing surveillance powers "against [its] political opponents." The January 20, 2021, date corresponds with President Biden's inauguration, but it is also only a few weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol protests. It is not just Gabbard who is being surveilled. Whistleblowers from the Federal Air Marshals (FAMS) report that many who attended Jan. 6 have also been placed on the Quiet Skies list, including the infant son of one of the protesters.

Sonya LaBosco, Executive Director of the Air Marshal National Council (AMNC), an advocacy group, has been working for two years to expose the misuse and abuse of the Quiet Skies program. LaBosco says FAM whistleblowers have reported that Quiet Skies may not be administered as intended.

FAM whistleblowers believe there have been many cases when they have been tasked to follow and surveil individuals who most likely should not be enrolled in the Quiet Skies program. Quiet Skies has its own "suspected domestic terrorist" list, but it also has access to other government databases that track individuals who may be a threat to national security.

In 2021, Senator Ron Johnson sent several letters to FBI Director Christopher Wray and to David Pekoske, Head of the TSA, when his office became aware of "an individual who may have been inappropriately placed on the TSA's watch list (Quiet Skies). Johnson's letter and the responses from the FBI and TSA can be viewed here, here, and here.

Johnson's letter references the wife of the Senior FAM, who was also being surveilled merely because she attended President Trump's speech at the ellipse on Jan. 6. She never entered the Capitol grounds or building. Attorney Tristan Leavitt with Empower Oversight claims the government has done nothing to stop the abuse of the Quiet Skies surveillance program.