By Charles S. Clark – Government Executive

One of the government’s longest-running whistleblower controversies recently took a new twist when three House Democrats successfully filed a friend of the court brief with the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the firing of an air marshal who in 2003 gave a television news reporter what his agency said was “sensitive security information.”

Robert MacLean was a civil aviation security specialist working for the Transportation Security Administration in 2003 when he was briefed about possible new terrorist threats from al Qaeda. Soon after, he and fellow air marshals were informed via unencrypted messages on their cellphones that their cross-country and international overnight missions on the at-risk flights were being canceled.

This article can be found in its entirety on the The Government Executive website.