The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the exclusive union representative of 47,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) at 400 airports across the country, filed suit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the Transportation Security Administration to turn over records about TSA Gold+, the agency’s program to put private contractors in charge of passenger screening and the screening technology itself. AFGE filed its Freedom of Information Act request in May. Nearly three months later, AFGE has received no records or determination on its request.
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 its FOIA 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.”
“Congress passed FOIA precisely to thwart this kind of two-faced agency management,” said Kevin Bell of the Free Information Group, representing AFGE in its lawsuit. “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.
AFGE is represented by the AFGE General Counsel’s Office and the Free Information Group in this matter. Click here for the lawsuit.