Earlier this year, the public learned about a controversial, and in some instances, creepy program by the Transportation Security Administration called Quiet Skies.
The domestic surveillance program received widespread criticism after the Boston Globe shared that the program involves federal air marshals spying on thousands of ordinary travelers who are not on a terrorist watch list or suspected to commit a crime.
A WNBA player and a social media manager were among two passengers targeted under Quiet Skies. All U.S. citizens run the risk of being followed by air marshals under Quiet Skies as all are automatically screened for inclusion based on their travel patterns or potential affiliations.
Today, the Boston Globe reported that the TSA has reduced their surveillance of travelers by no longer having air marshals document minor movements or behaviors like fidgeting in the airport, going to the bathroom during a flight, or having a "cold, penetrating stare."
TSA also claims that they are no longer following travelers through baggage claim or compiling extensive reports of travelers who fail to have any major suspicious behavior.
"Any routine passenger behaviors on a plane that would be seen as a normal behavior we are no longer capturing that," said David Kohl, the new director of the Federal Air Marshal Service, in an interview.
With the new changes, air marshals are only supposed to note "suspicious behavior," though the criteria surrounding what is "suspicious" is vague. Kohl says it's "something that would raise the hair on the back of your neck as a law enforcement officer."
"If there's nothing, there's nothing," Kohl said. "We're not going to follow passengers from curbside to checked baggage areas when there's no observation that would lead us to say there's more to this than a normal traveling passenger."
Despite the cutting back on some of their activity, Quiet Skies is still carrying out surveillance on travelers not suspected of crimes. Marshals just won't be collecting "as many details." And that's what has people concerned.
"The Quiet Skies program singles out people who have done nothing wrong and subjects them to intense scrutiny based on an untested, unreliable computer algorithm," said Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "To call this program troubling would be an understatement."
TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a congressional hearing that Quiet Skies hasn't led to any arrests or stopped a terrorist threat which has some people wondering - what's the point?
Even air marshals are asking the same question.
President of the Air Marshal Association John Casaretti told the Globe that union members are complaining about the waste of time and resources under Quiet Skies.
"The TSA must start targeting passengers based on fully developed intelligence as required by the Strengthening Aviation Security Act of 2018, and stop assigning missions based on a single data point, such as the country visited while traveling," Casaretti said. "Quiet Skies missions are degrading the health and readiness of our already overworked [air marshals], while squandering the talents of these highly trained agents."
The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General is auditing the program for its cost and effectiveness and looking into complaints from people associated with the program.
Despite the reduction in surveillance, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley says the program could trigger legal battles and may violate privacy law.
"The Quiet Skies program does not seem to want to go quietly," said Turley. "The fact is that the program could not withstand even marginal review and the TSA never articulated a strong basis for its use on either a practical or legal basis."
Between March and July 2018, 5,000 ordinary travelers were followed by air marshals and reports on these travelers were included in a TSA database. It's unclear how many travelers have been followed since July under the Quiet Skies program.
Despite this new announcement that the TSA will be reducing some of their surveillance activity, travelers may still be looking over their shoulders more often to see if they are among the 40 to 50 travelers being followed by Quiet Skies air marshals every day.
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