WASHINGTON — The Biden administration put Americans who defied COVID-19 mask mandates on no-fly lists — some of which are ordinarily used to flag suspected terrorists — according to preliminary findings from an internal Department of Homeland Security investigation obtained by The Post.
DHS flagged 19 Americans to Transportation Security Administration watchlists between Sept. 30, 2021, and Oct. 25, 2021, more than half of whom received the most severe no-fly designation and were prevented from boarding domestic flight as a result.
At least 11 of those Americans were kept on the watchlists until April 2022, when a federal court ruling forced the Biden administration to end its mask mandate.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that “Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority” when sharing the findings from the internal investigation, first reported by Fox News, into what the prior administration had dubbed Operation Freedom to Breathe.
“Biden’s TSA Administrator [David] Pekoske and his cronies abused their authority and weaponized the federal government against the very people they were charged with protecting,” Noem said in a statement
“President Trump promised to end the weaponization of government against the American people, and we are making good on that promise,” she added.
Noem fired five senior official associated with the operation and referred relevant information to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division as well as to members of Congress for further investigation.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who chairs the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, put out a brief report Monday stating that at least 24 Americans were put on TSA watchlists due merely to their association with a protest group called the Freedom to Breathe Agency, which protested mask mandates.
The DHS internal probe also found about 280 Americans were placed on watchlists after being involved in protests that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that briefly delayed certification of the 2020 electoral count.
Five of those US adults got the no-fly designation as well — over the objections of TSA’s chief privacy officer.
Putting Americans on the list “is clearly unrelated to transportation security,” the officer said in a Jan. 13, 2021, email obtained by The Post. “TSA is punishing people for the expression of their ideas when they haven’t been charged, let alone convicted of incitement or sedition.”
The day after the Capitol riot, a second TSA intelligence employee expressed alarm at adding some other people to watchlists for just being “curfew breakers” after the Capitol riot.
“That doesn’t mean they were not part of the breach of the capitol [sic],” the employee wrote, “but until we can prove otherwise … I hope we don’t end up adding them based on just the arrest.”
At the same time, other emails showed, Biden’s TSA over-relied on a George Washington University Program of Extremism database rather than the FBI in determining who to flag.
But the bureau also botched investigations, putting both a National Guardsmen and wife of a federal air marshal on a no-fly list due to bad intelligence.
Most were eventually removed from the lists by June 28, 2021, unless they had been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot.
The Post reached out to Pekoske for comment.
