First, we chat with Rick Piltz, former senior associate at the federal Climate Change Science Program. During the first term of the Bush administration, Piltz discovered that a White House environmental office was editing federal climate change data in report drafts, in an effort to tone down the human impact on global warming. In 2005, after resigning his position, his story made front page news across the country.
In our second segment, we talk with former Federal Air Marshal Robert MacLean, who was fired after blowing the whistle in the name of national security and airline safety. Three days after a serious hijacking plot was discovered by American intelligence in 2003, the Transportation Security Administration proceeded to remove Air Marshals from nonstop, long-distance flights often the ones most vulnerable to terrorist activities. This was done due to budgetary measures. MacLean disclosed this, Congressional outrage stopped the plan in its tracks, and the Air Marshals remained in place. MacLean was fired three years later for revealing such information which was retroactively labeled Sensitive Security Information a pseudo classification with no real merit.
This episode was filmed in March 2009.
