by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 11:35 AM ET, Thu June 5, 2025
The Trump Administration is poised to end the Transportation Security Administration’s “Quiet Skies” surveillance program as soon as this week.
CBS originally reported the news, citing unidentified sources. TravelPulse has reached out to the Transportation Security Administration for verification, but has not yet received a response.
The Quiet Skies program, which began in 2010, employs air marshals and analysts to identify travelers who may pose an increased security risk, such as potential terrorists or threat actors. It also informs TSA officials which people may be required to go through extra security measures during the security screening process.
Yet a recently published Department of Homeland Security release attacks the program, calling it corrupted under the Biden Administration and explaining one reported case in which Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s husband, William “Billy” Shaheen, was placed on the list.
Senator Shaheen, a Democrat, was able to fix her husband’s status on the list following a conversation with former Administrator Pekoske. It is unclear why Shaheen was placed on the list in the first place.
The report accuses the program of being lenient with Democrats and harsher on Republicans.
Director of National Intelligence and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was also placed on its watch list as recently as last year.
“It is clear that this program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden Administration — weaponized against its political foes and to benefit their well-heeled friends,” said Secretary Kristi Noem. “This program should have been about the equal application of security, instead it was corrupted to be about political targeting. The Trump Administration will restore the integrity, privacy, and equal application of the law for all Americans, including aviation screening.”
While there is no visible method to how TSA analysts choose who gets on the watch list, Senators during Gabbard’s confirmation hearing brought up concerns about her comments supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine and her acts of support for dictatorial regimes during her time as a Congresswoman, with some detractors going so far to call her a “Russian asset,” though that has not been verified.
What has been verified is that Russian state media, according to the BBC, praised her as the choice for Director of National Intelligence.
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