This week, airport executives gathered in Los Angeles for the American Association of Airport Executives annual conference. The agenda included a session on reducing officer involvement in alarm resolution, presented by a technology company that was in the room when TSA first demonstrated that capability internally in 2024.
Also this week, a former senior advisor in TSA's Strategy, Policy Coordination, and Innovation Office published a public article advising airports on how to prepare for TSA Gold+ adoption. He described the program as "no longer theoretical." He is currently employed by a private screening technology company that exhibited at the same conference.
Four days before the conference opened, TSA published a federal procurement document listing one of its official technology development objectives as this: "Reduce manpower requirements at the checkpoint."
None of it has been disclosed to Congress. A program called Gold+, which appears in official federal documents and was presented to airport industry representatives earlier this year, has not been mentioned in any of TSA's four congressional appearances this fiscal year. Against Giants documented the Gold+ record. Federal News Network reported on it exclusively in April 2026.
A Technology Fifteen Years in the Making
The technology that makes reduced-headcount checkpoints operationally viable did not emerge from the current administration. TSA traces its open architecture program, the technical framework that enables remote screening, AI-driven alarm resolution, and vendor-agnostic checkpoint systems, to 2010. It was developed across Republican and Democratic administrations through formal procurement processes, international working groups, and documented industry partnerships.
By 2023, TSA had issued a procurement mandate requiring all future screening contracts to comply with open architecture standards. That mandate was signed by the administrator serving under the Biden administration. The commercial infrastructure built on those standards was in place before the current administration took office.
TSA's own published materials from April 2025, one week before the current administrator returned to the agency, describe off-premises remote screening, self-service checkpoints, and AI-driven alarm resolution as active development priorities. A TSA official described a near-term concept in which officers would no longer need to review every image at the checkpoint because the technology had advanced sufficiently to automate that process.
The Private Sector Is Already Positioned
The technology that enables remote baggage screening, transmitting X-ray images from airport checkpoints to offsite viewing locations in real time, has been commercially available on the federal purchasing schedule since mid-2025. It was developed with government research funding and is offered by a joint venture that includes one of TSA's largest existing private screening contractors.
That same contractor was present when TSA presented Gold+ to airport industry representatives in March 2026, two days after TSA's administrator testified before Congress without mentioning the program.
What Has Not Been Disclosed
TSA's open architecture program is a legitimate standardization initiative with a documented rationale spanning fifteen years. Against Giants is not arguing otherwise.
What the record raises is a narrower question. The same technical capability open architecture enables is now being deployed in a procurement context, through a program called Gold+, that has not been disclosed to Congress. TSA's own procurement language now states explicitly that reducing checkpoint staffing is an official development objective. No statutory basis for Gold+ has been publicly identified. When industry asked directly whether the program required congressional authorization, TSA declined to answer.
The Disclosure Gap
Congress has not been given the opportunity to ask these questions because the program has not been disclosed across four consecutive hearings. That is the record Against Giants has assembled and transmitted to congressional offices.What This Means for TSA Officers
The transportation security workforce is not a passive subject in this story. The procurement documents, budget proposals, and organizational changes now on the public record describe a future in which the number of federal officers at airport checkpoints is reduced through technology, private operators, or both. That future is being built in procurement documents and budget line items, not in conversations with the workforce or in public congressional testimony.
TSA officers have a right to understand what is being planned around them, not just to them. Against Giants will continue tracking this record and reporting what it shows.