An 8-week-old infant was placed on a secretive
terrorist watchlist known as Quiet Skies last week,
according to AJ Fischer. The only suspected, but not so
reasonable, explanation for the designation is that
Fischer is a J6 defendant and the infant's father. Most
alarmingly, it was not even Fischer who booked the
ticket for his child. Fischer's fiancée booked the
ticket for herself and the infant, but neither was
anywhere close to D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. They booked
separately, weeks apart from Fischer, because he was
still awaiting court approval for travel due to his
ongoing case with the DOJ. So now, any time Fischer's
fiancée or their infant son travels, their boarding
passes are stamped "SSSS" to indicate they are
"suspected domestic terrorists" and listed in the Quiet
Skies database because of their association with
Fischer.
As explained in an Oct. 12 column from UncoverDC, the
Quiet Skies program is being weaponized against J6ers—
like 20-plus-year military veteran Bryan Smith, who
peacefully attended the Jan. 6 protest to contest the
2020 General Election. Quiet Skies is an undisclosed
TSA program that "targets travelers who are not under
investigation by any agency and are not in the
Terrorist Screening Data Base," according to Smith.
Like Smith, all three travelers, including Fischer's
infant, were assigned the dreaded "SSSS" designation
stamped below on the bottom right of his boarding pass
because he was traveling with his father. Fischer is
also a veteran, having served in the Air Force between
2013 and 2017.
"SSSS" is a concerning designation because it puts in
motion a whole set of potentially unwarranted actions
on the part of the airlines, TSA, and Federal Air
Marshals that result in "enhanced screening" of the
targeted individual. The enhanced screening is time-
consuming and extensive because it involves swabbing
every zipper, pocket, and hem of the targeted
individual's belongings. Targeted individuals are
strip-searched and required to open and power up every
device they possess. The process can take hours to
complete.
Aside from the potentially unconstitutional and
invasive procedures, the enhanced screening often
results in missed flights. In Fischer's case, the
extended screening resulted in his purchasing all new
flights for his family. Fischer told UncoverDC he and
his fiancee were "harassed and treated disrespectfully,
missed our flight, and had to buy a new one. The ticket
counter took 45 minutes to issue our tickets because
they couldn't check us in. Then TSA took over an hour
to search us. They knew our flight was boarding and
leaving. We had to buy new tickets on a different
airline, leave the gate, and go through it all again.
It is the epitome of Dinesh's police state."
Fischer also shared it wasn't the first time he and his
fiancee were targeted for the extra screening.
"My fiancée and I were subjected to this SSSS
harassment and codes on our boarding pass months prior
while she was pregnant when flying to Arizona. Because
my fiancée didn't attend J6 and has no involvement in
anything related to my actions or activism, we were
instructed at that time to book flights separately so
she wouldn't be flagged.
We did that this time; she booked her own reservation
with our 8-week-old son, and I booked my own ticket at
a later date. They were still SSSS'ed. The TSA pat-
downs and search of our belongings caused us to miss
our flight. We pleaded with the agents to hurry up as
we watched the clock tick down until the flight
departed. They wouldn't even allow us to change our
son's soiled diaper, and my fiancée and son were in
tears."
In early October, UncoverDC spoke with retired Federal
Air Marshal Sonya LaBosco, who elaborated on the Quiet
Skies program and its associated screening and tracking
procedures. She says many on the Quiet Skies watchlist
do not deserve to be there. In April 2023, LaBosco
wrote an article for UncoverDC detailing the way the
wife of a "20-plus-year Federal Air Marshal Service
veteran" was labeled a "Domestic Terrorist" and placed
on the Quiet Skies watchlist even though "she had never
been charged with any crime" related to J6. LaBosco
writes, "The TSA paperwork noted Bill's wife broke into
the United States Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021."
However, while "his wife had been in D.C. on Jan. 6,
she was nowhere near the Capitol building and could
prove it with her GPS locations, Uber, and hotel
receipts." Concerning Fischer's experience, LaBosco
explains the nuts and bolts of Quiet Skies in action:
"Sometimes they put things on these lists to say, well,
they are potential domestic terrorists because they
labeled them with having broken into the Capitol. So,
what happens anytime that person books travel? They
cannot check in remotely. You know the online services
that you can check in online or check your bag in
online and then give it to the curb? All that stuff is
done. It's over. Once you're on this list, you cannot
check in remotely.
Then, when you go to the ticket counter, you're going
to see the ticket counter person kind of freak out
because it's going to be like it's going to show on a
computer that you're one of those bad, bad people.
They're not going to let you take your own luggage from
the ticket counter. TSA will come and get your luggage
for you. They're going to take your luggage if you're
going to check it in, and then they're going to follow
and escort you to the security line. Then they will put
you through special, extra security.
After security, they're going to have people watching
you going through to your gate. When you get to the
gate, TSA's going to reverse screen you again. They're
going to come to the gate and only pull you and your
family. Whoever you're flying with now is on the list,
too, so your entire family. So if you've got small kids
or grandmothers or whoever is flying with you, they're
all going to be on the list because they're flying with
him.
There will be a connector too. They're gonna rescreen
at the gate, take your luggage, go back through it, and
you're going to have a minimum of three air marshals on
the flight, a minimum of three on every flight you
take. And if he's on standby, if he's one of these guys
that takes standby, we've had nine air marshals on
standby in one day for an elderly lady, one lady, a
grandma. Didn't even do anything. She wasn't even at
the capital. She was in another place at the rally in
D.C. Nine Air Marshall standing by in a day."
Alarmingly, LaBosco says many travelers have no idea
they are being tracked. LaBosco, who now advocates for
Air Marshals in her work with a private association
called the Air Marshal National Council (AMNC), says
Air Marshals come to her all the time with their horror
stories. LaBosco says:
[American citizens have] "no clue half the time that
they are being tracked. Marshals will sit between/by
you in the airport or between you on the plane. They
will sit and talk with you to get information from you.
And Air Marshals will tell me, 'This person is
harmless. They should probably realize not to talk so
much to somebody they don't know. They spill the beans,
and it lets you know they have nothing to hide. They
don't realize they are being followed.' And sometimes
we are following them from their houses. It isn't just
at the airport or on the plane. We are going door-to-
door for them.
Active Air Marshals reach out to me when stuff goes
wrong because they know I will scream at the top of my
lungs to make sure we avoid another 9/11. However, they
are also often embarrassed and question their jobs
because of who they are following and what they are
being asked to do. They will often tell me, 'It doesn't
feel right to be following certain people. They feel
like they are violating their constitutional rights."
LaBosco says Americans in the program are in a national
database with a photo. So every time an Air Marshal has
a flight, he or she will "have a picture of the
suspect. It will have personal information. There will
be a code designating them to be suspected domestic
terrorists. It will list their offense and category,
and then everyone will say they broke into the Capitol.
They lied on so many of these people."
According to LaBosco, "Everyone who flew into D.C. and
its surrounding area on or around Jan. 6 is a potential
terrorism suspect," a terrifying thought, to say the
least. LaBosco elaborates on measures that went into
place in Jan. 2021. "The FBI came to TSA, in the
beginning, asking for every manifest for every traveler
who flew in and out of the National Capitol Region that
day. The TSA got the list to the FBI and ingested it
into the TSA's national security database. I have seen
the records," LaBosco continued, "I can prove it. The
TSA actually went one step ahead and put that this
person or that [person] broke into the Capitol on their
internal sheet."
LaBosco says Quiet Skies is a waste of a program
because it has yielded "zero terrorists" since its
inception in 2010. Instead, she adds, "TSA has wasted
about $394 million on a program that doesn't work and
is just a big lucrative [TSA] domestic surveillance
grab on travelers who pose no threat to national
security."
Moreover, LaBosco states that while Air Marshals are
law enforcement, they are not being treated as such.
Instead, she says, "This is just theatre." The way
things stand now, says LaBosco, "it is just more
bureaucratic red tape to jump through, and it isn't
keeping us any safer." LaBosco says the way Air
Marshals are treated is also causing record suicides
because of low morale. LaBosco added:
"We are experiencing real issues, and internally, there
is so much pressure because we can't do our jobs right.
Our job is to get terrorists, and that happens on the
aircraft while we are sitting on the plane. We are
trained to intervene while strapped to a 12,000-gallon
weapon of mass destruction that was used on 9/11. Our
job is to get from point 'A' to point 'B' with nothing
happening in between. That is the Air Marshal's job,
and we are not allowed to do that job now."
Many of our resources are being taken out of the sky
being deployed to the border, and then we have Quiet
Skies. Most of the people in Quiet Skies are January
2021 folks. And I don't even say J6ers because many of
the people on the list weren't even at the Capitol that
day. We are not doing any preventative flights for real
terrorists or for people who might be flagged that way.
We are not following Antifa or BLM. We are not
following Al Qaeda or ISIS, despite how many times
Christopher Wray comes out saying we have to be
careful. It is sad. Air Marshals are being misused in
what is now a dangerous distraction."
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