Threat to a Waste Watcher

Should there be a time limit for protecting whistle-blowers' jobs? The Bush Administration seems to think so. Case in point: Ernie Fitzgerald, the Air Force cost analyst who in 1969 told Congress about $2 billion in cost overruns on the C-5 cargo plane, prompting President Nixon to tell officials to "get rid of that son of a bitch." A court order saved Fitzgerald's job, but he says it's under threat again. Fitzgerald, 79, tells TIME his role has eroded under President Bush. His reports on how much aircraft should cost "have been ignored" by superiors, he says. In 2002, he lost his...

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