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As always, we're in the best of hands

The Supreme Court today handed down a ruling in Dept of Homeland Security v. MacLean, essentially overruling the firing of an Air Marshal.

The marshal had been briefed on a highjacking alert... and then told that, to save money, DHS was canceling all overnight missions (that is, flight of air marshals) from his airport for the remainder of the month (the idea was to save on marshals' hotel bills when assignments were overnight). Believing that was dangerous (and illegal, since statutes said that flights of the type involved should be a high priority since they would be prime targets), he leaked the story to a reporter. As a result, DHS reversed the policy. DHS traced the leak to him and fired him.

The Court holds that he was entitled to the statutory protection for whistle-blowers, and that the exemption for whistle blowers who leak info whose release is "specifically prohibited by law" mean prohibited by law, not by agency regulation.