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Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.
The previously undisclosed program, called "Quiet Skies," specifically targets travelers who "are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base," according to a Transportation Security Administration bulletin in March.
The internal bulletin describes the program's goal as thwarting threats to commercial aircraft "posed by unknown or partially known terrorists," and gives the agency broad discretion over which air travelers to focus on and how closely they are tracked.
[...] But some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat — a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third.
Since this initiative launched in March, dozens of air marshals have raised concerns about the Quiet Skies program with senior officials and colleagues, sought legal counsel, and expressed misgivings about the surveillance program, according to interviews and 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," one air marshal wrote in a text message to colleagues.
Source: http://apps.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/graphics/2018/07/tsa-quiet-skies/?p1=HP_SpecialTSA [Ed Note: Not available for all browser modes]
Also at CNN, Fortune, The Verge, and The Hill.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 31 2018, @12:44PM (1 child)
I explicitly said the Fed isn't the ideal situation, and it makes mistakes... sometimes huge ones. (Though blaming the housing crisis entirely on Fed policy is absolutely not fair, though it was a contributor.)
The question about whether the Fed was a "mistake" is whether we'd have more or less insane monetary panics without it. Given the history of U.S. financial markets before the Fed, I undoubtedly think we would have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @10:58AM
Who blamed the 2008 crisis entirely on the Federal Reserve? You seem to be attempting a strawman argument.
The Federal Reserve was founded in 1913, when paper money had only been in use in the United States for about 51 years. You write of unspecified "monetary panics." Don't you think it natural that people would be uneasy about the new currency? Since 1913, there have been other changes in the world of finance. In my opinion, the present-day United States resembles its pre-1913 incarnation less than it resembles the developed countries of the present day. After 104 years, none of them have chosen to replicate the Federal Reserve in their own banking systems.
The Federal Reserve is charged with looking after the interests of both private banks and the public. Those interests diverge [businessinsider.com].