After joining the Federal Air Marshal Service in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Robert J. MacLean raised concerns about a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plan to remove air marshals from certain long-distance flights, which he believed would compromise aviation security.
Since disclosing his concerns, MacLean was fired by the TSA, leading to a years-long legal battle over federal whistleblower protections. His case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor and allowed him to pursue a whistleblower defense. MacLean was later reinstated, and his case set a crucial precedent for federal employees who disclose threats to public safety.
Following his National Whistleblower Day appearance in July 2026, National Whistleblower Center (NWC) reached out to MacLean to discuss why he came forward and to learn more about the status of his case.
An Interview with Robert J. MacLean
You served in the U.S. Air Force before becoming a U.S. Border Patrol agent and then a Federal Air Marshal in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. How did your military service shape your understanding of duty, public safety, and the obligation to speak up when you believe lives may be at risk?
Many service members sacrificed limbs and lives to protect our Constitution, especially our Bill of Rights. It’s for them that I had an obligation to their memories to expose our government flagrantly putting the public in danger. Thousands were hurt or killed in Afghanistan and Iraq because we never addressed the danger – even years after Israel did – of when pilots need to unlock the cockpit to sleep, eat, or use the lavatory on long distance flights.
It is now known that the 9/11 hijackers exploited opportunities and forced their way into the cockpits when the pilots got their breakfast trays or used the lavatory. Stronger protective measures were needed to prevent recurrences.
In Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, the Supreme Court held that the Whistleblower Protection Act’s exception for disclosures, “specifically prohibited by law,” could not be based solely on an agency regulation. Why was that distinction so important for federal employees who may confront agency secrecy claims?
Any low-level employee can designate a piece of information, on paper or in thought. It can occur with any of the various unclassified but sensitive or controlled but unclassified labels that are governed by a government rule or regulation and be done retroactively, like what was done to my disclosures.
You identified several aviation security issues that you believe require corrective action, including cockpit secondary barriers, cockpit door design, policies affecting flight-attendant and pilot access, vulnerabilities involving airport vehicles, and protective bollards at Washington Reagan National Airport. What common lesson do these issues reveal about how agencies should respond when frontline personnel identify preventable risks?
After TSA told me that a plan was already in place to install vehicle ramming protection bollards in front of Reagan National Airport’s 75-year-old Terminal A, I obtained a Freedom of Information response from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority of a very specific TSA order requesting that bollards be urgently installed three months after my TSA and DHS-OIG complaints were filed. TSA never admitted that it falsely informed me that a plan was in place before my complaints.
Two federal laws, an executive order, and numerous foreign aviation safety agencies and FAA and TSA corrective actions have occurred subsequent to my disclosures between 2003 and 2018. They include or address:
- Lack of cockpit secondary barriers.
- Inward-opening cockpit doors.
- The needless and dangerous FA/pilot-switch “Germanwings Rule.”
- Law enforcement random searches exemption of airline food catering trucks.
- Vehicle-ramming bollards installation in front of Reagan Airport.
Federal agency leadership will take credit for correcting dangers they helped create.
You prevailed in the Federal Circuit twice and at the Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote, yet your pursuit of accountability did not end there. What has it taught you about the difference between winning a landmark legal principle and obtaining meaningful, complete relief as an individual whistleblower?
DHS came at me even harder than before despite active U.S. Office of Special Counsel, DHS-OIG, and congressional investigations. And during those investigations, within two years, the TSA was subjected to a performance improvement plan, five misconduct investigations, and a referral for criminal prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
How has the NWC been an ally or provided support?
The NWC started to publicly support me in 2009 in its publications and at National Whistleblower Day events. The NWC has since always supported me.
What would you say to service members, veterans, federal employees, and other public servants who see a serious danger or wrongdoing but fear retaliation? What practical and personal advice would you offer before they decide whether – and how – to make a protected disclosure?
If you attempt to get corrective action through your chain of command, contemporaneously document everything, including every formal or informal conversation. Simultaneously, relay your disclosures to attorneys of nonprofit government accountability groups.
I have zero regrets and would make my disclosures over and over again.
Learn more about Robert MacLean’s whistleblower cases against DHS here.
