The Biden administration’s use of federal security tools to punish political dissent has been exposed in what may be one of the most chilling examples yet of government overreach.
According to internal documents obtained by Fox News Digital, the TSA and DHS secretly placed Americans who resisted mask mandates or were tied—sometimes loosely—to Jan. 6 onto federal watchlists, including the no-fly list normally reserved for suspected terrorists.
The operation, astonishingly titled “Operation Freedom to Breathe,” was launched in September 2021, months after the CDC had already relaxed its national mask mandate. The initiative specifically targeted 19 Americans accused of resisting the administration’s mask policies, with more than half banned outright from flying within the United States. These citizens remained flagged until April 2022, when Biden finally ended the mandate.
That wasn’t all. Roughly 280 individuals connected to Jan. 6—many of them not charged with any violent crime—were also flagged for heightened surveillance, with five placed on the no-fly list. In some cases, internal objections were ignored.
TSA’s own Chief Privacy Officer warned that these actions were “clearly unrelated to transportation security” and that people were being punished “for the expression of their ideas when they haven’t been charged, let alone convicted.”
The watchlisting relied not on FBI intelligence or law enforcement databases, but on academic lists and social media posts. This sloppy process led to egregious errors. One National Guardsman who had been deployed to secure the Capitol for Biden’s inauguration—nowhere near the building on Jan. 6—was barred from flying due to bad intel. The wife of a federal air marshal also found herself flagged, again thanks to faulty FBI reporting.
Kristi Noem, now Secretary of Homeland Security, blasted the revelations: “Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority, targeting Americans who posed no aviation security risk under the banner of political differences. This should outrage every citizen.” She confirmed the case will be referred to the DOJ and Congress for investigation.
Most of those connected to Jan. 6 were quietly removed from watchlists by late June 2021, but some remained flagged for months simply because they had pending charges. Meanwhile, the mask-resisters targeted under “Operation Freedom to Breathe” were stuck in bureaucratic limbo until the mandate was fully scrapped.
Sources inside TSA say this represents the largest expansion of no-fly restrictions against U.S. citizens in history. A tool once meant to stop terrorism was repurposed to penalize political enemies of the sitting administration — an unmistakable sign of weaponization.
