In an Aug. 10 interview with Fox News, former Congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard discussed what she experienced, upon learning she had been included on the Transportation Safety Administration’s (TSA) “Quiet Skies” surveillance program, which identified her as a potential terrorist threat to the U.S. That fact came to light thanks only to information provided by air marshal and TSA whistleblowers.
A frequent air traveler, Gabbard reported that on every trip, she and her husband had to undergo 30 to 45 minutes of in-depth screenings, involving air marshals, canine units, etc. As a combat veteran and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves since 2003, she said that being subjected to such surveillance by “my government” was painful—not to mention completely unconstitutional and a violation of her 4th Amendment rights, for which, she said, she intends to sue the TSA.
Gabbard reported that no one from TSA, any other government agency, or from the executive branch had bothered to contact her to explain why she was included in this program. “I enlisted [in the Hawaii National Guard] to fight Islamic terrorism” in 2003 after 9/11, she said, and have been in the military for more than 20 years, served in three separate war zones, etc. “and now I’m being called a terrorist threat?”
As of July 23, when this was all revealed, she told Fox, her life has changed. The revelations of TSA’s unconstitutional activity “has had a chilling effect on me and my family.” It means that “I’ll always be looking over my shoulder—is my government surveilling me? Reading my emails? Listening to my phone calls?” The government “has taken away my sense of freedom.”
