'100 percent vindication': Ladera Ranch air marshal fired for whistleblowing wins another ruling

[Bob Carswell]

After eight tortured years, vindication inches ever closer for
Robert MacLean, fired federal air marshal.

On Tuesday, an administrative judge ordered the Department of
Homeland Security “to show cause why I should not find that
(MacLean) has proven his affirmative defense of whistleblowing,”
and gave the DHS 14 days to do just that.

MacLean, of Ladera Ranch, is delighted.

“One hundred percent vindication,” he said. “It’s the last loose
end that needed to be tied up. There’s basically nothing left.
It’s case closed.”

In 2003, MacLean received an alarming emergency alert from the
Department of Homeland Security, detailing a “specific and
imminent terrorist threat focused on long-distance flights – a
more ambitious, broader-scale version of the 9/11 plot,”
according to court briefs. Within 48 hours, he got an
unencrypted text message from the Transportation Security
Administration scrapping all overnight missions and telling air
marshals to cancel hotel reservations immediately to save money
on hotel rooms.

That, MacLean thought, was crazy. He protested up the food
chain, got nowhere, and finally shared the information with a
reporter from MSNBC. Fallout was fast and furious: Lawmakers
decried the cost-cutting idea as foolish, officials backtracked
and overnight missions for air marshals continued as usual.

Three years later, MacLean’s bosses discovered he was the source
of the leak. The message he shared was retroactively stamped
“sensitive security information,” and MacLean was fired.

Tuesday’s order comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s
January ruling that MacLean’s dismissal for disclosing
“sensitive security information” was wrong, and that the
Whistleblower Protection Act was designed to protect employees
like him. That sent the case back down the food chain for
correction.

The order by Administrative Judge Franklin M. Kang “reaffirms
findings in his initial opinion, when he concluded that Mr.
MacLean acted in good faith to better protect the country, and
succeeded,” said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government
Accountability Project and one of MacLean’s lawyers.

“The issue then was whether he had a right to interfere by
publicly blowing the whistle. The Supreme Court has said yes
with an exclamation mark, and Judge Kang has conformed his
earlier findings to the court’s mandate.”

MacLean and the DHS are currently in settlement talks.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/maclean-658053-security-
court.html