Holiday travel has become “unsafe” due to the Biden regime’s warped national security priorities, an air marshal union is warning.
For the past two years, air marshals have been deployed to the U.S. southern border instead of the transportation sector where they belong, Sonya LaBosco, director of the Air Marshal National Council (AMNC), told FOX News earlier this week. And according to LaBosco, the “primary mission” of those left to police the nation’s transportation systems is to surveil Americans who flew to the U.S. Capitol region around the time of the Jan. 6 riot, regardless of whether they attended the rally.
“We have been fighting this for almost two years. We are not flying right now,” LaBosco said. “We just received an email last week that resources are depleted as far as our flying air marshals.”
Initially, deployment to the border was on a voluntary basis, but late last year the deployments became mandatory and sparked a “mutiny” among marshals.
AMNC President David Londo told the Washington Examiner at the time that dozens of rank-and-file air marshals were willing to risk termination and refuse orders to deploy to the border.
“You’re almost going to have a mutiny of a federal agency, which is unheard of,” Londo said in December of 2022.
Nothing has changed since then, LaBosco told Fox News.
“Secretary Mayorkas has said more than once that the border is secure, so he is not concerned with that. But we all know that the border is not secure. He will not call this a crisis. But now, not only is the border destabilized, our aviation is destabilized as well,” she said.
LaBosco said that the air marshals are not performing law enforcement duties at the border, but are instead just “passing out water.”
“We’re not flying right now,” LaBosco continued. “The only missions that we’re doing are Quiet Skies missions, and those are missions that are following the January 2021 people.”
She explained that people who flew into the Capitol region in January 2021 were “put on a specific list” and air marshals have been assigned to follow even those who didn’t go to the Capitol or attend the Trump rally.
The AMNC director noted that most of the people have not been subjected to any kind of investigative process that would warrant the surveillance.
“They’ve not had any kind of criminal investigation, they’ve not committed a crime, but yet, three years later, we’re still following the same individuals day in and day out,” she noted, adding that some of the people on the list had nothing to do with the Jan. 6 protest.
“If anyone was there for a job interview, to visit family—we even had a gentleman who was there for a funeral—they’ve been put on this domestic terrorist list just because of their geographical location, she said.
LaBosco explained that these people are given a Secondary Security Screening Selection (“Quad S”) classification on their boarding pass at the airport, meaning they have been targeted for additional enhanced security screening by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“Then they’re followed by teams of air marshals on any leg of flight that they have,” she said, adding that “a lot of them” are aware they are being targeted even though they have not been vetted or convicted of any crimes.
“We’ve followed the same people over and over for three years who are no threat to this country,” she declared.
One such person is Brandon Straka, the founder of the “WalkAway” campaign, who protested at the Capitol on January 6. Straka, a self-described “former liberal” formed the WalkAway movement in 2016 to encourage people to leave the Democrat Party.
Straka was sentenced to three years of probation in January of 2022 for disorderly conduct.
“I was placed on TSA’s “domestic terrorism” watchlist and given a designation of SSSS (Quad S)- which requires hours of screening and a team of TSA agents (upward of 12 or more) to follow me around the airport with dogs,” he wrote on X.
The worst accusations against me by the DOJ was that I stood outside of the open doors of the Capitol on J6 and said the words “go, go” (purportedly as an encouragement to hundreds of people who wouldn’t have been able to hear me anyway), and that I witnessed the crowd passing a police shield and said the words “take it, take it” (it’s never been explained to me why I would care enough about this to contribute, but ok).
Presuming that the above is true, this is why I have been placed on a domestic terrorist list, and this is why you and everybody you care about has been significantly less safe the past 3 years as the majority of security resources are being weaponized to harass and punish Trump supporters.
LaBosco argued that by focusing on people like Straka and illegal immigrants, the air marshals’ eyes have been taken off of legitimate threats.
“So we’re either on the border for illegal immigrants or we’re following folks from January 2021. We’re not doing out regular missions where we’re out there looking for the bad guys so on most flights you’re not going to have air marshals,” she said.
If anything bad happens, she added, “you’re on your own.”
The AMNC issued an “official complaint” this week to Congress about the TSA’s “improper” classification of conservative Americans as “domestic terrorists.”
“The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) leadership are improperly classifying innocent Americans as “Domestic Terrorists” on internal TSA/FAMS databases and watchlists. Most of these classifications occur in the absence of any investigation or even any follow up. All of these classifications involve Americans that attended a political rally on January 6th,” the union stated in a letter to Congress.
In one case cited in the letter, the wife of a federal agent was classified as a Domestic Terrorist for attending a Trump rally.
“This should send a chill down your spine,” the AMNC wrote on X.
Excerpt from AMNCs official complaint to Congress on TSA classifying Americans as “domestic terrorists”. This should send a chill down your spine. (The letter cites a wife of a federal agent who was classified as a Domestic Terrorist for attending a Trump rally).
“The…
— Air Marshal National Council (@FAMS_AMNC) November 23, 2023
Last December, after dozens of disgruntled air marshals threatened to refuse orders to deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border, the Air Marshal Association (AMA) called for them to be fired and accused its rival AMNC of promoting an “insurrection.”
“It is unfortunate that some Federal Air Marshals would resort to incendiary, partisan, and insurrectionist rhetoric to avoid being deployed to an undesirable assignment,” the AMA said in a statement.
The AMA, the largest labor organization for federal air marshals, said any unhappy air marshals should be removed “like cancer” from their government jobs and “investigated as an insider threat.”
“Fraudulent Air Marshal groups have formed that are espousing ‘mutiny,’ and advising [federal air marshals] to disobey orders to deploy to the border. These groups, and the individual agents that make them up, must be cut from government like a cancer,” the AMA wrote.
“The AMA believes these individuals should be investigated as an insider threat, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the AMA continued. “There is no room in law enforcement for agents that lack integrity, promote insurrection, and fail to honor their oath of office.”