US Senator Rand Paul said on Tuesday he has documents which confirm suspicions that under the previous Joe Biden administration, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) put Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, on its watchlist last year. The TSA watchlist allows federal air marshals to follow American citizens and collect information on their behaviour in an effort to stop threats from potential terrorists.“Just last night, I received the first set of records from the department (Homeland Security) regarding Tulsi Gabbard’s placement on the TSA Quiet Skies watchlist,” Fox News quoted Paul as saying on Tuesday.“These documents confirm our suspicions. Federal air marshals surveilled the now-director of national intelligence during domestic flights in 2024, reporting back information related to her appearance and even how many electronics she was observed using. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case,” the Republican representative from Kentucky added. Paul made the charge during at the Capitol Hill as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Krisi Noem testified about her department’s budget request for fiscal year 2026. The TSA comes under the DHS.Several US news outlets reported in November last year, days after Trump’s victory in the presidential election and his subsequent nomination of Gabbard to lead the country’s intelligence community, that she was “briefly” put on the Quiet Skies list.‘Targeted for speaking out against Biden admin’: GabbardIn a post on social media platform X, the US intelligence chief said the federal law enforcement was “weaponized” against her and others because they “spoke out” against the Biden administration.“Under the flimsy guise of ‘domestic terrorism,’ federal law enforcement and intelligence were repeatedly weaponized against me and other Americans who exercised our First Amendment rights in speaking out against the Biden administration’s policies and therefore deemed a threat to their power,” Gabbard posted.“As DNI, I am focused every day on ending the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community that has resulted in undermining our God-given freedoms and civil liberties. I’m grateful for Senator Paul’s leadership on this issue and look forward to working with him and others in Congress to ensure the safety, security AND freedom of the American people,” she added.
