The union for Transportation Security Administration workers sued the federal government late Wednesday night over its plan to privatize airport security, accusing the agency of developing and marketing the plan in secret since at least last August.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) says in its lawsuit that the public only learned of the GoldPlus or Gold+ privatization program “by happenstance,” after someone found a TSA-branded briefing flyer earlier this year at Orlando International Airport and shared it with a Federal News Network reporter, who covered it. The Trump administration is billing the effort as an early-stage pilot program to privatize airport security, which corporate executives have wanted since George W. Bush federalized it in response to 9/11. Airports that opt in to the pilot program will also hand over their machines and technology to private companies.

More from Whitney Curry Wimbish | Zachary Groz

TSA only formally disclosed the program to AFGE after the union filed a Freedom of Information Act request in May seeking details about it; the union says in the lawsuit that TSA officials have failed to respond to its document request, which sought information about the purposes of the program and the material that supports its creation, and failed to say when they would complete the request.

Instead, TSA indicated it would charge the union a $25 processing fee, and then undertook yet more secretive actions that “increase the urgency of TSA’s response” to the request, the lawsuit states. Among those are the June contract solution for Gold+, the July 20 announcement to TSA workers at Tampa International Airport that the airport would participate in the program, and, on the same day, an announcement to Des Moines International Airport workers that told them their employment was about to change. They would have the option of “accepting employment with the private screening company once selected,” the announcement stated, according to the lawsuit. Or they could be reassigned to another airport with TSA vacancies, pursue other federal positions, or retire.

The list of companies the Trump administration has preapproved to get a piece of the money is a rogues’ gallery of military contractors.

AFGE told the Prospect that it had also been disturbed to learn of another step the government took in secret. A month after the Federal News Network published its story, the Trump administration held an “industry day” on May 21 at TSA headquarters in Springfield, Virginia, to bring together government officials, airline and airport executives, and hundreds of representatives from corporations that stand to gain from privatization. According to records the federal government published on its procurement website, attendees included representatives from Palantir and Amazon; airports BWI Thurgood Marshall, Philadelphia International, Seattle-Tacoma International, and JFK International Air Terminal LLC, an affiliate of the Dutch private company that runs JFK’s Terminal 4; and American Airlines and United.

“It is a shame that TSA continues to operate in secrecy over their unnecessary privatization plans that will put the safety of the flying public in jeopardy. AFGE learned of this secret industry day after the fact, and we expressed our displeasure to TSA over our exclusion from participating as privatization affects a significant portion of our members,” an AFGE spokesperson told the Prospect. “TSA committed to notifying the union when the next industry day is scheduled.”

The lawsuit requests that the court direct TSA to give AFGE all wrongfully withheld documents. TSA did not respond to a request for comment.

PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS TO RETURN airport security to the private sector and the days before 9/11, as the Prospect reported on Monday, via two programs, the Gold+ program and the Screening Partnership Program. Under Gold+, private contractors will handle passenger security screening as well as the machines that scan people and baggage to detect weapons and other prohibited material. Airports in Charleston, South Carolina; Des Moines, Iowa; and Tampa, Florida, are the first to sign up. Airport officials in Tampa say contractors will be selected by September and security will be fully privatized by next May.

The Trump administration also proposed to hugely expand the Screening Partnership Program (SPP), which allows airports to contract with private companies for security screening. Twenty airports do so now; the administration’s proposal would force all small and non-hub airports to do the same, increasing the number to about 220. At the same time, the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget would fire 8,400 TSA officers and replace only about half with contracted workers.

Both AFGE and the Association of Flight Attendants say the plan endangers workers and passengers alike. They note that the plan is part of an overall project to crush organized labor and follows the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate TSA workers’ collective-bargaining rights in 2025, and forcing them to work through the federal government shutdown without pay for more than a month earlier this year, leading some to have to turn to food banks to survive.

The most significant aspect of the privatization is the Gold+ plan to transfer equipment and technology to the private sector, industry lobbyists and federal contract experts told the Prospect.

The federal government is making close to $13 billion available for the Gold+ program, and opening it up to a vast array of new contractors, beyond the roughly 20 preapproved through the SPP, which anticipates a more modest budget of $800 million this year. Even that figure is still about triple SPP’s budget in previous years, when it hovered around $286 million annually.

TSA Privatization Returns Airport Security to a Dangerous Past

THE LIST OF COMPANIES THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION has preapproved to get a piece of the money is a rogues’ gallery of military contractors. Some also have contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, raising the possibility that they will share passenger information as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. But security experts told the Prospect that was more likely an added bonus, and that contractors have wanted a piece of TSA ever since Bush instituted post-9/11 reforms.

From the industry’s perspective, the project means airports will have access to cutting-edge technology, said Steve Amitay, executive director and general counsel of industry lobbyist National Association of Security Companies. While SPP only provides workers, Gold+ gives the screening machines and technology to the contractors using them. In some instances, he said, a company may win a Gold+ contract and decide the screening machines are adequate, then have the ability to quickly swap them out for the latest advancement. Others will go into an airport and decide “this stuff is trash,” he told the Prospect. “Part of our bid, we’re going to upgrade … to better equipment.”

Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser, meanwhile, likened it to a scenario where the government pays for F-35 jets, sells them to a private company, then rents them back. That move is difficult for the public to monitor and appears to be an easy way for companies to grift.

“Even if the rate is the same, if you’re not just paying for the contracting work by people but also lending out, or selling and then renting back the machines,” he told the Prospect, “the more different times money goes back and forth, the more opportunity for private profit.”

This is the second story in a series on TSA privatization. Read the first one here. Send tips to wwimbish@prospect.org and zgroz@prospect.org.

Whitney Curry Wimbish is a staff writer at The American Prospect. She previously worked in the Financial Times newsletters division, The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh, and the Herald News in New Jersey. Her work has been published in multiple outlets, including The New York Times, The Baffler, Los Angeles Review of Books, Music & Literature, North American Review, Sentient, Semafor, and elsewhere. She is a coauthor of The Majority Report’s daily newsletter and publishes short fiction in a range of literary magazines. She can be reached on Signal at wwimbish.07.

Zachary Groz is a writing fellow at The American Prospect. He previously wrote for New York Focus, where his investigative reporting was recognized by the New York Press Association. Before that, he served as co-editor in chief of The New Journal, a long-form magazine at Yale University. He can be reached on Signal at zg123.87.