Twenty-five years ago, our nation’s aviation security was deemed so critical that Congress took it out of the hands of private companies and directed the hiring of a new federal workforce to prevent future tragedies like the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and the deadly bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scottland in 1988.
Now, the agency that was created to oversee that federal workforce, the Transportation Security Administration, is planning to privatize passenger screening and the screening technology itself at three airports next year. Even more concerning, TSA is rolling out this major change to our current security posture in secret – without the input of TSA employees or their union representatives, members of Congress, airport authorities, or the flying public.
Last week, AFGE filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the Transportation Security Administration to turn over records about the new privatization program, dubbed TSA Gold+. AFGE is the exclusive union representative of 47,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) at 400 airports across the country.
AFGE and the public learned Gold+ existed by accident. A TSA-branded briefing flier describing the program as a “new public-private partnership aimed at modernizing aviation security at select airports across the country” was found at Orlando International Airport and shared with the media. TSA had been building and selling the program for months before that. In August 2025, the agency asked vendors for information to support “new GoldPlus public-private screening mode acquisitions.” On March 26, 2026, two TSA officials briefed the Airports Council International conference on Gold+.
The agency never formally told AFGE the program existed until after the union filed a Freedom of Information Act request. TSA notified AFGE in late July of its intention to launch TSA Gold+ at three airports next year: Tampa, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; and Des Moines, Iowa.
Congress got the same treatment. Asked at an April 16 hearing before House appropriators what TSA could share about privatization, acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill pointed to the president’s budget, said a legislative proposal was still being developed, and falsely told lawmakers it involved only the country’s smallest airports. TSA had been briefing much larger international airports about Gold+ for months.
“TSA has been keeping everyone in the dark about its privatization plans – TSA employees, members of Congress, airport authorities, and the flying public,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “And it’s little wonder why – this privatization expansion is a major departure from the aviation security system established by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Changes of this magnitude must not be made in the dark.”
AFGE is represented in this lawsuit by the AFGE General Counsel’s Office and the Free Information Group, a public interest law firm located in Washington.
“Congress passed FOIA precisely to thwart this kind of two-faced agency management,” said Kevin Bell of the Free Information Group. “AFGE’s members and the public have a right to everything TSA has spent months lavishing its vendors with about lucrative contracts while keeping its sworn officers in the dark. A layer of Gold+ paint will not cover up the rust of privatization.”
Gold+ is one piece of a larger campaign against the officers who staff the nation’s checkpoints. In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security moved to strip 47,000 TSOs of their rights at work, a decision AFGE is still fighting in federal court in Washington state.
Take Action: Click here for details on what you can do to fight this privatization plan.
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