In the News

House Republicans will be investigating the Transportation Security Administration to work out how a prolific Swiss hacker who identifies as a “tiny kitten” was able to obtain over a million entries from the No-Fly List, The Spectator has learned. The hacker, a twenty-three-year-old who goes by Maia Arson Crimew, was able to access a 2019 version of the list after what she described as just a few hours of hacking.

Following the news of the hack, Representative Dan Bishop of North Carolina, who serves on the Homeland Security Committee, immediately suggested that the new House GOP majority planned to use the full weight of its oversight powers to learn how this data was left so exposed — and to determine the extent to which Americans’ national security and personal liberty were compromised.

In a letter sent this morning to TSA administrator David Pekoske, and obtained exclusively by The Spectator, Bishop — and Homeland Security chairman Representative Mark Green — outlined a series of questions about the “alarming” hack, which the members call “a matter concerning cybersecurity, aviation security, as well as civil rights and liberties.”

While the Republicans sit on the committee that oversees TSA, they wrote that they were unaware of the massive data breach until they read about it in the media. “It is incumbent upon the members of the committee on Homeland Security to conduct necessary oversight to ensure threats to Americans’ transportation systems and civil rights and liberties are taken seriously,” they warned.