Republican Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (R-HI) is speaking out after the Biden Administration quietly put her on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) terrorist watchlist.
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Last month, Gabbard and her husband were at the airport waiting to board their flight when they found that their boarding passes were marked with “SSSS,” which stands for “Quad S.” This means that a passenger is viewed as a potential threat and subject to random searches. She also will unknowingly have two explosive detection canine teams, a transportation security specialist, an undercover TSA supervisor, and three federal air marshals on any flight she boards.
“I had the audacity to tell the truth: that Kamala Harris would essentially be a mouthpiece and puppet of the Military Industrial Complex and National Security State. The next day, July 23, they retaliated,” Gabbard said. “Sadly, this is what we can expect from the ‘Harris’Administration.”
Gabbard said, via Racket News, that she didn’t think much of it until she saw an article in Uncover DC revealing that the Republican had been put on the TSA’s “Quiet Skies” list.
“When I saw that, I thought, ‘Wow, okay. So everything I was experiencing was exactly what I feared was going on,” she said. “It’s bringing to the forefront… how brazen the political retaliation and abuse of power continues to be under the Biden-Harris administration.”
“It happened every time I boarded,” says Gabbard. “I’ve got a couple of blazers in there, and they’re squeezing every inch of the entire collar, every inch of the sleeves, every inch of the edging of the blazers,” she says. “They’re squeezing or padding down underwear, bras, workout clothes, every inch of every piece of clothing.” Agents unzipped the lining inside the roller board of her suitcase, patting down every inch inside the liner. Gabbard was asked to take every piece of electronics out and turn each on, including her military phone and computer.
That was the other strange thing. “I use my military ID to get through security sometimes,” says Gabbard, who among other things traveled to her reservist base in Oklahoma during this period. Once, she was unable to get through security with military ID. A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent saw the “SSSS” marker. “The TSA agent said, ‘Why are you Quad-S? You’re in the military,’” explains Gabbard. “And I said, ‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering.’
Gabbard goes on: “Then I said, ‘The only thing I can think of is, I work in politics.’ And he said, oh.”
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The agent told Gabbard that sometimes supporters of a particular president who’d had no issues traveling before but were now “marked quad-S every time they traveled.”