The program delves into the minutiae of air travel, including “whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a ‘jump’ in their Adam’s apple or a ‘cold penetrating stare,’ among other behaviors.”
They’ll do this to Americans who haven’t committed any crime at all, but they wouldn’t dream of devoting any resources to trying to figure out how to identify those who are actually likely to commit an act of terror on an airplane. Why not? Because to do so would be “Islamophobic.”
“Boston Globe: TSA’s ‘Quiet Skies’ Tracks US Citizens Like Terrorists,” by Eric Mack, Newsmax, July 29, 2018:
The Transportation Security Administration, in a previously undisclosed program call “Quiet Skies,” is gathering information on U.S. citizens who are neither under any investigation nor in the terrorist screening database, which is costly, time consuming, and raises potential privacy concerns, according to The Boston Globe.
“Beyond the legalities, some air marshals believe ‘Quiet Skies’ is not a sound use of limited agency resources,” the Globe reported. “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 program delves into the minutiae of air travel, including “whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a ‘jump’ in their Adam’s apple or a ‘cold penetrating stare,’ among other behaviors,” according to government documents reviewed by the Globe.
“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,” an air marshal texted colleagues, according to the Globe.
A TSA bulletin in March stated the program specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base” with the intent of thwarting airline threats “posed by unknown or partially known terrorists,” allowing “the agency broad discretion over which air travelers to focus on and how closely they are tracked,” per the Globe.
While the program has solid intent, but “it is a time-consuming and costly assignment, they say, which saps their ability to do more vital law enforcement work,” according to the report.
“These revelations raise profound concerns about whether TSA is conducting pervasive surveillance of travelers without any suspicion of actual wrongdoing,” senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project Hugh Handeyside told the Globe.
“If TSA is using proxies for race or religion to single out travelers for surveillance, that could violate the travelers’ constitutional rights. These concerns are all the more acute because of TSA’s track record of using unreliable and unscientific techniques to screen and monitor travelers who have done nothing wrong.”…