All it took was one phone call for a Democratic senator to have her husband removed from a travel watchlist that tracks ties to suspected terrorists, according to a report.
In Oct. 2023, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen contacted then-Transportation Security Administration chief David Pekoske through a back channel, multiple sources told CBS News.
Two days later, her husband, Lebanese-American attorney and political strategist William Shaheen, was taken off a government watchlist that subjected him to additional screening at airports. He was then placed on a VIP list that protected him from any future enhanced screening measures, including random checks.
Shaheen had been added to the TSA’s “Quiet Skies” list after he was flagged for traveling with a person on a suspected terrorist list. The identity of this person is unknown, but insiders told CBS that he was removed from the terrorist watchlist later in 2023.
The 81-year-old is a longtime Democratic political operative. He was the co-chair of Jimmy Carter’s successful campaign for the presidency in 1976. Shaheen—after a stint as a district court judge—also worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
A spokesperson told the Daily Beast that Sen. Shaheen aired complaints to the TSA after her husband endured “several extensive, invasive, and degrading” airport searches.
However, the senator was not informed that her husband was on a watchlist or that he had received special treatment in being excluded from future enhanced screening, the spokesperson said.
The TSA declined to comment.
The Quiet Skies program was launched in 2010 as a “practical method of keeping another act of terrorism from occurring at 30,000 feet.” It includes domestic surveillance of travelers through facial recognition software and monitoring by undercover air marshals. Under ordinary conditions, getting off the list can be a lengthy, arduous process.
After he was flagged as traveling with a possible terrorist, William Shaheen and his companion were covertly observed by a marshal during a flight on Oct. 18, the insiders told CBS. The situation unfolded amid heightened security after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people.
The senator’s call with Pekoske—who led the TSA under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden—happened the same day as her husband’s flight. He was removed from Quiet Skies on Oct. 20.
After news broke, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a triumphant press release accusing the previous administration of corruption.
“It is clear that this program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden Administration—weaponized against its political foes and to benefit their well-heeled friends,” Noem said, vowing to “restore the integrity, privacy, and equal application of the law for all Americans, including aviation screening.”
The press release boasted that the TSA had now removed Shaheen from the VIP travel list.
Sen. Shaheen, 78, a vocal critic of Trump, announced in March that she will not seek another term in 2026. She was first elected to the Senate in 2008. Last week, her daughter Stefany Shaheen launched a Democratic campaign for a New Hampshire House seat.
The TSA’s Quiet Skies program has long drawn criticism for its surveillance of American citizens.
Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is now Trump’s director of national intelligence, has also complained in the past about being on the Quiet Skies list. As of Aug. 2024, Gabbard said she was still on the “secret domestic terror watchlist.”
The Quiet Skies list is managed separately from the Terrorism Screening Database—which is commonly known as America’s “terrorist watchlist.” Quiet Skies surveils even those who are not suspected of being terrorists.
