JULY 30, 2018
The existence of the program was
first reported Saturday by the
The Boston Globe,citing an internal TSA bulletin from March as well as anonymous sources within the department. The document leaked to the
Globe says the program specifically targets travelers who are not on terrorist watch lists and are not under investigation by any agency.
Spokeswoman Michelle Negron said the program "doesn't take into account race and religion, and it is not intended to surveil ordinary Americans."
The program is routinely reviewed by "legal, privacy and civil rights and liberties offices," she said.
The program began in 2010, with a new iteration in 2012 and a new "concept of operations" in March of this year, Michael Bilello, assistant administrator of public affairs for TSA, tells NPR. The document leaked to the
Globe was connected to the March update.
Under the program, the
Globe reports, "thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance, carried out by small teams of armed, undercover air marshals."
The air marshals observe the targets and keep notes, the
Globe reports — documenting whether they change clothes or shave while traveling, abruptly change direction while moving through the airport, sweat, tremble or blink rapidly during the flight, use their phones, talk to other travelers or use the bathroom, among many other behaviors.
So ... federal air marshals that are observing an individual we're concerned about, based on travel patterns and other information ... of
course they're watching their behavior. They're trying to determine, is this person going to take any action on a plane?"
Bilello confirmed that passengers do not need to be on terror watch lists, or suspected of any crime, to be monitored.
The first red flag is foreign travel — specifically, frequent visits to "countries that we know have a high incidence of adversarial actions," as Bilello put it.
After analyzing travel patterns, the TSA pulls intelligence from a number of sources — state and local law enforcement, federal agencies and international partners — before deciding to assign an air marshal. The program is designed to ignore people clearly traveling for business or to visit family, and focus on potential threats, Bilello said.
The TSA would not provide details on the precise criteria required to flag a passenger for the program. Documents provided to the
Globe suggest that reservations using the phone numbers or email addresses of watch-listed individuals are a consideration. According to
DHS documents, Customs and Border Protection uses biographical data and outstanding warrants to conduct traveler risk assessments, and also has access to FBI facial recognition software.
The
Globe reports that a flight attendant and a federal law enforcement officer are among those who have been flagged for surveillance under the program, to the frustration of air marshals who felt they were wasting their time.
Dozens of people are followed and observed each day, the newspaper says. According to the leaked memo, passengers in the Quiet Skies program remain on the list to be monitored for up to 90 days or 3 observed trips, whichever comes first.
Air marshals are conducting a new domestic surveillance program, tracking people as they fly and move through airports. It might be illegal.
apps.bostonglobe.com
But some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat — a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third.
“What we are doing [in Quiet Skies] is troubling and raising some serious questions as to the validity and legality of what we are doing and how we are doing it,” one air marshal wrote in a text message to colleagues.
Agency documents show there are about 40 to 50 Quiet Skies passengers on domestic flights each day. On average, air marshals follow and surveil about 35 of them.
In late May, an air marshal complained to colleagues about having just surveilled a working Southwest Airlines flight attendant as part of a Quiet Skies mission. “Cannot make this up,” the air marshal wrote in a message.
One colleague replied: “jeez we need to have an easy way to document this nonsense. Congress needs to know that it’s gone from bad to worse.”
Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor chosen by President Obama in 2013 to help review foreign intelligence surveillance programs, said the program could pass legal muster if the selection criteria are sufficiently broad. But if the program targets by nationality or race, it could violate equal protection rights, Stone said.
Several air marshals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, told the Globe the program wastes taxpayer dollars and makes the country less safe because attention and resources are diverted away from legitimate, potential threats. The US Federal Air Marshal Service, which is part of TSA and falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has a mandate to protect airline passengers and crew against the risk of criminal and terrorist violence.
John Casaretti, president of the Air Marshal Association, said in a statement: “The Air Marshal Association believes that missions based on recognized intelligence, or in support of ongoing federal investigations, is the proper criteria for flight scheduling. Currently the Quiet Skies program does not meet the criteria we find acceptable.
Hice’s bill, the “Strengthening Aviation Security Act of 2017,” passed the House and is awaiting consideration by the full Senate. (Was never voted on?
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3144)
A bulletin in May notes that travelers entering the United States may be added to the Quiet Skies watch list if their “international travel patters [sic] or behaviors match the travel routing and tradecraft of known or suspected terrorists” or “are possibly affiliated with Watch Listed suspects.”
According to a TSA bulletin, the program may target people who have spent a certain amount of time in one or more specific countries or whose reservation information includes e-mail addresses or phone numbers associated to suspects on a terrorism watch list.
The bulletin does not list the specific countries, but air marshals have been advised in several instances to follow passengers because of past travel to Turkey, according to people with direct knowledge of the program.
One air marshal described an assignment to conduct a Quiet Skies mission on a young executive from a major company.
“Her crime apparently was she flew to Turkey in the past,” the air marshal said, noting that many international companies have executives travel through Turkey.
pulled out seemingly significant info from two articles. They are not full c/p of the articles.
