The Worm Turns: House, Senate Investigate TSA Surveillance of Tulsi Gabbard
Two weeks ago, former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard found out she’d been placed on the TSA’s “Quiet Skies” watch list, and put under “Special Mission Coverage” surveillance by Federal Air Marshals. A Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserves who enlisted and served in Iraq after 9/11, Gabbard was almost speechless at reports of her placement on a terror list. She felt “the deepest sense of betrayal,” she said, adding: “It cuts to the core.”
Since then, multiple Air Marshals came forward as whistleblowers and their firm, Empower Oversight, sent letters to eight House and Senate Committees of jurisdiction. Each was asked to “get to the bottom” of why Gabbard was surveilled and look into Quiet Skies more generally. Today, Racket learned members of at least three of those Committees decided to investigate, giving deadlines to Transportation Security Administrator David Pekoske to answer a range of queries, and not just about Gabbard.
Gabbard herself also just heard from the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) report she completed back on July 31st. The letter doesn’t confirm or deny that Gabbard was ever on a list, but does say “corrections” were made that may assist in avoiding “misidentification” errors in the future. As the Department wrote:
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