On June 5, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of the Quiet Skies counterterrorism program.
Known as Quiet Skies, the program was a Transportation Security Administration operation that sought to increase airplane security. It allowed federal marshals to follow U.S. citizens on domestic and certain outbound international flights, if those individuals had previously come into contact with people considered “known or suspected terrorists.”
The New York Times
Without evidence, Noem claimed that the program had become politicized, especially under the Biden administration. She also made a vague generalization that it failed to stop a terrorist attack. Whether or not it did is unknown.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was briefly placed in the Quiet Skies program during the 2024 campaign along with her husband, Abraham Williams. This was for good reason. Earlier, she went to Vatican City to meet with Belgian businessman Pierre Louvrier. He is close to sanctioned Russian oligarchs such as Konstantin Malofeev. Louvrier was on a Federal Bureau of Investigation watch list.
Gabbard has also acted like a foreign asset for adversarial regimes, if not was one herself. She held a secret meeting with brutal former dictator Bashar al-Assad and whitewashed his war crimes. She also repeated false Russian propaganda, almost verbatim, that claimed that there are dozens of American-funded biolabs in Ukraine. This was an initial common justification for Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
