Journalists are buying into a fired air marshal's claim that he's a whistleblower who's been done wrong. Robert MacLean went to the press when he got a text message cancelling overnight trips by air marshals for two months during a budget crunch. He was accused of revealing sensitive security information and fired. Advocacy groups are claiming the whistleblower protection act is now a dead letter because the agency didn't tell him this was sensitive information. Put aside how you do that in a text message ("Pls dnt lk ths"?), MacLean's bid for whistleblower status is based on the notion that he went to the press because he thought suspending long-distance coverage was "dangerous." But revealing publicly that coverage had been suspended? He couldn't figure out that that might be dangerous too? He needed a little note at the end of the text message before he could see that the disclosure might get into the wrong hands?
Somehow I'm glad this guy isn't carrying a gun on commercial flights any more.
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