- What TSA's Own Evidence Says
- The Absence Data
- The Federal Security Director Survey
- How the Cost Figures Were Built
- The Record and the Claims Before the Court
On September 4, 2026, the government filed a document in federal court that had not been public before. It is 742 pages long, and it is the evidence the Department of Homeland Security says it relied on when it decided to terminate the collective bargaining agreement covering the nation's Transportation Security Officers.
In litigation, this is called the administrative record. When an agency makes a decision and someone challenges it as arbitrary, the agency must produce the material it actually considered. The court then reviews that record to determine whether the decision was reasoned or whether the agency reached a conclusion the evidence does not support.
The distinction matters, because an argument can characterize evidence in ways the evidence itself does not bear out.
For more than a year, the public conversation about the TSA collective bargaining case has run on characterizations. The determination signed by then-Secretary Noem described a workforce whose union representation drained resources, undermined flexibility, and increased absences to the point of threatening security. Those claims were repeated in press releases and briefs. Until now, the material behind them was not available to read.
It is available now. Anyone can read it. That is the reason for this series.
What the Series Covers
Over the next four parts, we will work through what the record actually contains. We will look at the absence data the determination used to argue that collective bargaining increases callouts, and we will compare that data to the conclusions drawn from it. We will look at the survey of Federal Security Directors, the agency's own management officials, and compare what they reported to how the determination described their responses. We will look at how the cost figures were built, including the official time total and the arbitration hours, and what those numbers rest on. And we will connect what the record shows to the claims now pending before the court.
We are not going to tell you what to conclude. The point of reading a primary source is that you do not have to accept anyone's summary of it, including ours. Where the record supports the determination, we will say so. Where the record and the determination diverge, we will show both and let the divergence stand on its own.
What This Series Is Not
It is not a prediction about how the case will end. The court has not ruled on the merits, and the preliminary injunction protecting the 2024 agreement remains in effect while the litigation proceeds.
It is not a claim that the determination is unlawful. That is for the court to decide.
It is an examination of whether the evidence the agency assembled supports the decision the agency made. That is a question any reader can evaluate for themselves, because the evidence is now on the public docket.
Why It Matters
Institutional players tend to omit what complicates their position. The workforce has been given characterizations because characterizations were all that existed outside the courtroom. The record changes that. For the first time, the officers whose representation is at stake can see the same evidence the Secretary saw, and reach their own judgment about whether it says what the Secretary said it says.
That is what we are going to help them do.
If you want to understand how any of this applies to your own situation, that is a conversation worth having. It costs you nothing. againstgiantsllc.com/get-help.html or info@againstgiantsllc.com