Foreword
Federal air marshal Robert J. MacLean was concerned. He had been providing security on U.S. commercial airlines since 2001, and in 2003, he learned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was eliminating assignments on some long-distance flights. MacLean worried that the cuts, made to save the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) money on overnight hotel costs, would threaten the safety of air travel, particularly after he heard that Islamic extremists had issued threats against airlines. After his initial attempts to relay his objections to his superiors and the department’s inspector general were rebuffed, MacLean gave this information to an MSNBC…
