TSA keeps watchlist of threatening, or simply unruly, flyers

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration has created a new secret watchlist to monitor people who may be targeted as potential threats at airport checkpoints simply because they have swatted away security screeners’ hands or otherwise appeared unruly. A five-page directive obtained by the

New York Times said actions that pose physical danger to security screeners — or other contact that the agency described as “offensive and without legal justification” — could land travelers on the watchlist, which was created in February and is also known as a “95 list.”

“An intent to injure or cause physical pain is not required, nor is an actual physical injury,” according to the directive that was issued in March by Darby LaJoye, the agency’s assistant administrator for security operations.

According to the directive, people who loiter suspiciously near security checkpoints could be put on the watchlist. So could those who present what the document vaguely described as “challenges to the safe and effective completion of screening.”

But on its own, the watchlist cannot be used to prevent passengers from boarding flights, nor can it impel extra screening at security checkpoints, according to the document. That has raised questions about whether it serves a legitimate security purpose and has heightened civil liberty concerns over the added government surveillance.

“If I’m running late, having a bad day and I’m rude to the screeners, do I get put on the list?” said Fred Burton, the chief security officer at Stratfor, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.

“The bottom line is that in the post 9/11 world, do we really need another watchlist — particularly one from the TSA, which is not an intelligence agency?” said Burton, a former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.

On Thursday, lawmakers demanded more details about the watchlist, which had not been previously disclosed, and suggested that the agency notify people who have been added to it.

“TSA has an important job to do, and I want TSA officers to be safe and secure,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said during a House homeland security subcommittee hearing. “What I don’t want — what I think no American would want — is an excuse for unfair, secret profiling that doesn’t even offer a chance for people to contest their name appearing on such a list.”

So far, the names of fewer than 50 people have been put on the watch list, said Kelly Wheaton, a TSA deputy chief counsel.

But two other government security officials who are familiar with the new watch list, describing it on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it, said that the number of names on the list could be higher, with travelers added daily.

The guidelines prohibit profiling based on race, religion or gender, and said those categories could not be used as the sole reason for including a passenger on the watch list. But the directive obtained by the Times said such factors could be used when they are relevant and fit specific intelligence.

Wheaton said the new list aims to protect airport security screeners from travelers who previously have been demonstrably unruly at, or near, checkpoints. He said screeners were assaulted 34 times last year, up from 26 in 2016.

Matthew F. Leas, a TSA spokesman, said in an email that the agency “wants to ensure there are safeguards in place to protect Transportation Security Officers [TSOs] and others from any individual who has previously exhibited disruptive or assaultive behavior at a screening checkpoint and is scheduled to fly.”