A new report claims the Transportation Security Administration has been monitoring American travelers with undercover air marshals through a program dubbed Quiet Skies.
An internal TSA bulletin from March obtained and released Saturday by the Boston Globe revealed the domestic surveillance program permits air marshals to track and monitor airline passengers who are not suspected of a crime or listed on a terrorist watch list.
The original report was also verified by several United States air marshal sources who indicated a lack of support for the program, with some openly questioning the legality and effectiveness of the surveillance.
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According to the Washington Post, the TSA has used the Quiet Skies program since 2010 to identify passengers based on their travel patterns and document questionable actions during observation, including heavy sweating, changing their clothes or constant restroom visits.
“We are no different than the cop on the corner who is placed there because there is an increased possibility that something might happen,” TSA spokesman James O. Gregory told the Washington Post. “When you’re in a tube at 30,000 feet . . . it makes sense to put someone there.”
The Boston Globe reports that dozens of travelers are monitored under the program each day by small teams of armed undercover air marshals, with government officials claiming a flight attendant and a federal law enforcement officer have been among those flagged for surveillance.
Some advocacy groups are openly questioning the legality of the Quiet Skies program, including The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR senior litigation attorney Gadeir Abbas said in a statement:
“The arbitrary surveillance of innocent people at airports guarantees that Muslim passengers will be disproportionately harassed by federal officials based on racial and religious profiling, with no benefit to the traveling public or to our nation’s security.”
“This is just the latest example of the federal government’s counterproductive and misguided approach to aviation security. Congress never authorized any agency to actively surveil innocent travelers.”
“This program must be dropped and those responsible for this waste of government resources held accountable.”
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