Tulsi Gabbard Was Added Onto a Terrorist Watchlist
Politicians and bureaucrats grow ever more brazen about violating of our liberties
An Air Marshal whistleblower revealed that Tulsi Gabbard was put onto the Department of Homeland Security’s “Quiet Skies” terrorist watchlist. As a result, in multiple instances, Gabbard and her husband have been searched while trying to get to their flights. Gabbard describes the process as follows:
“They have to shut down an entire screening lane through the TSA checkpoint just to screen you individually because it takes so long. They will check all of your electronics—they will empty every single article: your toothbrush, your underwear, your clothing, your books, your battery charger—every single article from your carry-on luggage—and screen and swipe every single piece of it. It takes thirty to forty five minutes, and then once they give you the all-clear, then you go and you board your flight and sometimes you may get additional screening at the gate before you’re allowed to walk onto the plane.”1
Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, also notes in a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari:
“The Special Mission Coverage in Ms. Gabbard’s case reportedly involves two Explosive Detection Canine Teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on every flight Ms. Gabbard boards.”2
Who is Tulsi Gabbard? Is the treatment she’s receiving justified? And what is the DHS hoping to accomplish?
In April 2003, Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard to defend America against radical Islamist terrorists in the wake of 9/11.3 She has served (and continues to serve) in the Army for 21 years, having since risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Gabbard was also a Hawaii Congresswoman for eight years, and ran for president in 2019 against other Democrat party candidates during the primaries—one of them being Kamala Harris.
It was during the primary debates that Gabbard shone a harsh light on Harris’ career as attorney general of California, stating that Harris jailed 1,500 people for marijuana violations while laughing when she was asked if she had ever smoked herself, withheld evidence that could have supported the case of a death row inmate, and held prisoners beyond their sentences to be used as cheap labor.4 These debate moments went viral and likely played a part in ruining Harris’ election chances and in causing her to join Joe Biden as his running mate instead.
Gabbard has since made many appearances on media outlets and podcasts, openly criticizing our intelligence agencies, the military industrial complex, and the Biden-Harris administration, saying that they have been undermining our freedoms, carelessly spending our taxpayer dollars, and inching us ever closer to provoking a nuclear war.5
On July 21st, 2024, Biden announced that he wouldn’t be seeking re-election, and that Kamala Harris would be running in his stead. On July 22nd, Gabbard appeared on the Laura Ingraham show, again to criticize Biden and Harris, pointing out that they had ceded power to the military industrial complex, which wants us and our allies in a constant state of war for their own gain, and our intelligence agencies, and noting that Trump would stand up to these unelected powers if he were made president, preventing us from entering wars.6 And according to the previously mentioned whistleblower, on July 23rd, Gabbard was added to the Quiet Skies watchlist.
Three months later, Gabbard is still on this watchlist to my knowledge, with no explanation from either the DHS or the Biden-Harris administration. Their months of inaction, coupled with the peculiar timing of Gabbard’s addition to the watchlist, her continual criticisms against Biden and Harris, and Gabbard’s recent endorsement of Donald Trump for president—which I doubt have all gone unnoticed by Biden and Harris—indicate to me that Harris tacitly approves of Gabbard being added to this watchlist.7
Gabbard does not deserve to be on this watchlist. She is loyal to the American people, as evidenced by her admirable military service and her denunciations of policies she believes would plunge America into war. Her husband, a mere cinematographer, also does not deserve to be on this watchlist.8
Why were they added to this watchlist, if not to protect commercial flights? I believe this was an act of political retaliation—to frighten Gabbard into silence prior to the 2024 presidential election (to the benefit of Kamala Harris’s campaign)—and to serve as an example to anyone else thinking about speaking out against Harris and her allies in the bureaucratic state. Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard’s claims, her addition to this watchlist is a blatant violation of her First (and Fourth) Amendment rights, and a concerning sign that our most fundamental liberties are being stripped from right under our noses.
Here’s my guess as to why the DHS has allied itself with Harris. Our federal government has given up tremendous power to “a natural and loose alliance” of agencies consisting of millions of unelected bureaucrats. These officials have access to once constitutionally separated powers of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, creating more regulations annually than Congress does laws, “[punishing] perceived offenders and [mustering] unlimited resources to quash citizens’ appeals and objections.” Our agencies—the DHS included—had been growing largely uninterrupted for decades until the Trump administration’s attempts at deregulation. And so the DHS has allied itself with Harris by trying to suppress Gabbard’s speech in order to prevent Trump from potentially stripping more power from these self-perceived “permanent custodians of U.S. power, morality, and influence.”9
I believe this predicament we’re in has (a) flown under most voters’ radars, (b) is not what voters intended, including those who support Kamala Harris, and, (c) is bigger than just Biden and Harris.
Though the unelected are seemingly not yet able to simply outright toss the most prominent outspoken dissidents like Gabbard in prison, I fear where this slippery slope may lead us if we do not course correct. Free speech is the greatest restorative mechanism a society has, without which said society ossifies rapidly into authoritarianism. It is a miracle that such a right is enshrined in our Constitution given that most nations even today do not enjoy this privilege, but we have no guarantee to this freedom if we do not remain vigilant.10
You may have inferred that I favor Trump leading up to the 2024 presidential election. And you would be right—at least when it comes to diminishing bureaucratic control, Trump has made strides at deregulation to degrees not seen since Reagan’s presidency, which in principle I align with.
With that said, even if you do not vote this election cycle, or if you choose to vote for Kamala Harris for president, I hope you’ve come away from this reading with a greater appreciation for the degree to which the American people and elected officials have (and continue to) handed over our freedoms to unelected bureaucrats who now have power that no one, regardless of political leaning, should have. I ask only that you try to keep your ears to the pavement and listen for all manners in which our government, no matter the party in charge, is infringing upon our rights.
I have reason to be optimistic. We still have agency in determining our nation’s trajectory. We each still have a say in who gets elected. And we can still make our voices heard. As previously mentioned, elected officials can make headway in chipping away at the administrative state. The bureaucrats in our government have only grown so brazen because many of us have taken our privileges for granted and have not been vigilant in safeguarding our rights. If each of us makes our desire to have our rights safeguarded and solidified heard, whether through civil discourse with our friends and neighbors, or through our votes at the ballot box, I believe we can dissuade bureaucrats and politicians from trammeling upon our liberties and revert our government to one that serves the people, rather than one that merely serves its own special interests.11
Tulsi Gabbard, “The Biden Harris Administration Is Coming After Me,” August 11, 2024, 6:42-7:20, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riIXyOrIlLw.
Tristan Leavitt, “Letter to the Honorable Joseph V. Cuffari, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Regarding Improper Targeting of Individuals for Enhanced Surveillance by the U.S. Federal Air Marshals Service, Including Former U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard,” August 5, 2024, 3, https://empowr.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-08-05-TL-to-DHS-OIG-re-FAMS-surveillance-with-attachments.pdf.
Zenaida S Espanol, “State Legislator ‘honored’ to Serve Country,” The Honolulu Advertiser, April 20, 2003, https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Apr/20/ln/ln29a.html; Tulsi Gabbard, “The Biden Harris Administration Is Coming After Me,” 1:37-2:02.
CNN, “Tulsi Gabbard Rips Kamala Harris’ Record on Criminal Prosecutions,” August 1, 2019, 3:46-4:41, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4fjA0K2EeE.
For examples of Gabbard making these criticisms prior to being added to the Quiet Skies watchlist, see Tulsi Gabbard, “Biden Is Downplaying the Threat of Nuclear War,” August 15, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iCzkw6ETIU; Tulsi Gabbard, “Kamala Harris Would Be Worse Than President Biden,” July 11, 2024, 1:10-1:48, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm4yioazVtk; See also Tulsi Gabbard, “Kamala Harris and Dem Elites Are Out of Touch With Reality,” March 5, 2024, 0:00-1:25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkxN9KUBxa0 — for an example of Gabbard’s criticism of the Biden-Harris administration’s open border and soft-on-crime policies.
For additional examples of Gabbard continuing to make these criticisms after her addition to the Quiet Skies watchlist, see Tulsi Gabbard, “My Urgent Warning About Kamala Harris,” August 28, 2024, 0:27-1:30, 1:55-2:13, 6:12-6:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r7e1GjNRZw; Tulsi Gabbard, “Kamala Harris Cannot Remain in Power,” September 3, 2024, 1:00-2:17, 3:12-3:24, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGw5G0Rrlhs; Tulsi Gabbard, “We Could Be on the Brink of Nuclear War,” September 16, 2024, 2:37-3:23, 4:56-6:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-qvu-Tw5I0.
Fox News, “Tulsi Gabbard: The Choice in November Is Clear,” July 23, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEGBoZ2jbE8.
For examples of Gabbard endorsing and supporting Trump for president, see Tulsi Gabbard, “I’m Proud to Endorse Donald Trump for President,” September 14, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHMaVJNL35M; Gabbard, “My Urgent Warning About Kamala Harris,” 1:30-1:50; Gabbard, “We Could Be on the Brink of Nuclear War,” 6:57-7:42.
Gabbard, “The Biden Harris Administration Is Coming After Me,” 5:36-6:22.
Victor Davis Hanson, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America (Basic Books, 2021), 157 – for the direct quotations.
For more on bureaucracies accumulating manpower and political might and regulating faster than Congress legislates, see Cooper, Charles J. “Confronting the Administrative State.” National Affairs, Fall 2015, https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/confronting-the-administrative-state; Hanson, The Dying Citizen, 160; Clyde W. Crews, “How Many Rules and Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue?,” Forbes, August 18, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/waynecrews/2017/08/15/how-many-rules-and-regulations-do-federal-agencies-issue/; Clyde W. Crews, “Ten Thousand Commandments 2024” Competitive Enterprise Institute, July 30, 2024, https://cei.org/studies/ten-thousand-commandments-2024/; See also Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, First Harvest (Harcourt, 1990), 190-91 – for a brief overview on the growth of regulatory bureaucracy up to the late 1970’s.
For more on Donald Trump’s attempts at deregulation, see Crews, “How Many Rules and Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue?”; Clyde W. Crews, “Ten Thousand Commandments 2021,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, June 30, 2021, https://cei.org/studies/ten-thousand-commandments-2021/; Kelly Kennedy and Philip A. Wallach, “Examining Some of Trump’s Deregulation Efforts: Lessons From the Brookings Regulatory Tracker,” Brookings, March 8, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/examining-some-of-trumps-deregulation-efforts-lessons-from-the-brookings-regulatory-tracker/.
See ARTICLE 19, “The Global Expression Report 2022,” ARTICLE 19, June 2022, https://www.article19.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/A19-GxR-Report-22.pdf.
But see Hanson, The Dying Citizen, 160; Cooper, “Confronting the Administrative State” – for more pessimistic takes on the people’s abilities to whittle down the administrative state.