Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended the TSA’s Quiet Skies watchlist program Thursday, saying it never stopped a single terrorist but led to all sorts of abusive behavior toward airline passengers.
Under Quiet Skies, the Transportation Security Administration would flag people it thought deserved extra scrutiny when they traveled, and federal air marshals would be tasked with bird-dogging them to make sure nothing happened.
Ms. Noem said the program had a budget of $200 million a year, failed to produce any security benefits and became a twisted tool of political weaponization.
She also asked Congress to investigate the abuses.
“It is clear that the Quiet Skies program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden administration,” she said.
Her decision comes in the wake of revelations that the Biden administration last year stuck Tulsi Gabbard, a pro-Trump figure, on its Quiet Skies list after she made disparaging remarks about President Joseph R. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and that a Democratic senator’s husband landed on the list — then was removed after the senator raised objections.
Homeland Security said William Shaheen, the husband of New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, made the list after traveling with a terror suspect.
