At a Loss for Words - FBI's translation scandal heats up (Village Voice)

[al bupp]

From http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0448/mondo2.php

By James Ridgeway

Among the unanswered questions of 9-11 is the part played by the FBI in handling the various tips and information pouring through its translation section at the Washington, D.C., field office. It is in this division that certified language specialists with top secret security clearances handle the most sensitive information, from wiretaps to face-to-face interview translations between an investigating agent and a suspect. The translators often have inordinate power. Because of their expertise (or rather, the limited number of languages spoken by their bosses), translators often make the decisions on which cases to fully translate and which not to bother with. Errors can creep in: Translators may misunderstand a dialect and thus lose the meaning or context of information. On occasion, some translators' grasp of English is so poor that they cannot convey nuances of the speakers.

This division is already under fire from the Justice Department's inspector general and whistle-blowers, most notably Sibel Edmonds, who was fired from her job as a Farsi translator when she protested the way the work was being handled. Since Edmonds began speaking out, others have come forward.

A November 8 letter to the Justice Department from Senate Judiciary chair Charles Grassley and ranking minority member Patrick Leahy told of one such case: "A current member of the staff of Senator Grassley has continued to have discussions over the past year with a current contract linguist for the FBI. The allegations made by this current employee are very troubling. Specifically, this employee articulated that translators are often deficient in their abilities to translate into English. The employee noted that some translators who are presently employed by the FBI or who are employed by contractors may in fact fail the English test, but still be provided a passing grade surreptitiously because of personal contacts among the translator staff. This employee also noted that supervisors charged with ensuring that materials are translated accurately are often deficient in their own translating abilities."

Edmonds, whose previous letters to the two senators were marked "classified" by John Ashcroft's Justice Department, purportedly in the interests of national security, is readying a federal court appeal to the gag order. She complained to her superiors that translators were unable to handle the languages in which they had been certified. For example, in one case, a man did not have proficiency in basic English, but was hired under pressure from family members who also had worked for the FBI. This man, according to Edmonds, not only was "placed in sole charge of translating for some of the most important/sensitive intelligence investigations, he was also sent to Guantánamo Bay to translate information collected from the detainees."

[Ian David]

1. So....

So then people were tortured to extract information which was then incorrectly translated?

"Sir, the prisoner is dead, but we have the information. We had to torture him for days. Here is his confession. It says,'There is a bus parked on the moon and it is filled with dreams.'"

"Hey, who translated this?"

[nashville_brook]

2. :)

[drscm]

3. No need to worry because Asscroft had stated that he solved all

the problems in the world.

[Igel]

4. Not really funny.

The usual rule of thumb for lesser-taught languages:
--if you want an advanced degree in a language, don't even hint you'll use it to translate, except *maybe* some cutting-edge literature, preferably of interest to your advisor; above all, not for the government, even if you're funded by a Title VI grant;
--if you want to translate from lesser-taught language X, you're probably a fluent native speaker of it and can't get a security clearance; and, in any event, you probably don't know enough English (but will still correct native speakers of English);
--if you want to translate from language X and you're not a fluent native speaker of it, your knowledge is probably insufficient to translate anything useful(however, your translations are obviously brilliant--frequently brilliantly ludicrous--and only morons would dare criticize them).

If her contract was fairly standard, it's a "if we have work and like you, we'll give you some" kind of thing.

In other words, what she describes sounds pretty much like business as usual. I've heard of idiot-boy translators whining to the editor's supervisor that the editor was incompetent; idiot-boys get no more work. And, well, they're just not happy about it.

The entire state of affairs is really sucky; but given how the educational system is set up, it's not likely to change.

[Tsiyu]

5. You need to know more than this article states

There was a concerted effort to NOT translate documents in a timely manner, aside from the incompetence of some of the translators. Get the whole story. Sibel Edmunds is under a gag order from Asshat himself.

[Igel]

9. Followed it from the word go.

There's little said that I haven't heard said from other disgruntled translators in the private sector. It sounded damning, until I realized that what she was saying sounded eerily familiar. So it might be meaningful, it might not; I'm not jumping to any conclusion.

Whistle-blowers sometimes are really blowing whistles to alert others to wrong-doing; sometimes they're just tooting their own horns.

It may also be that she was just a newbie; I'm not saying the irregularities aren't there, just that she may be blowing things out of proportion or misinterpreting what she saw. That's what an investigation's for.]

[jokerman93]

10. Your caution is thoughtful

But it doesn't account for the gag order from Ashcroft. Can you fit that into your framework for this thread?

[Igel]

21. No.

But wouldn't *your* employer try to put a gag order on you if you went to the press when you had a court case against him, if he could?

I'm not saying that nepotism and favoritism don't run wild in the FBI office; it's not a surprising state of affairs. And while more controllable, it's also largely unavoidable in the short term. Imagine if suddenly the FBI needed to hire 30 Sorbian specialists, all US citizens, clean backgrounds, with no connections to Germany. It'd be chaos.

But before I support someone, I'd like think I'm not backing a vendetta. I've done it before, and been embarrassed. Her situation could easily lend itself to that interpretation: freelancer passed over for a relative, but with little or no contract protection (I haven't a clue how her feedback was).

So I'm neutral. I don't believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But I think y'all should know that few translation sections involving lesser-taught languages are without their problems, esp. when it comes to security clearances. And the implications of "contract employee" buried in the story.

[Just Me]

22. Presumption of a "vendetta" is an inappropriate starting place,...

,...unless you are addressing a member of the right-wing.

Moreover, if you have been following Sibel's story,...the great weight of evidence tends to contradict any presumption of "vendetta".

If there's nothing to hide,...the administration should open their books. But, of course, they have so much to hide that even Nixon's former general counsel writes a book entitled, "Worse Than Watergate".

In a true democracy, secret governance (along with an intentional psy-op against its people) is strictly prohibited. Times have changed with our 2000 regime change.

[Igel]

24. I don't presume a vendetta.

I presume the possibility of a vendetta.

These are obviously two completely different things. If I presumed a vendetta, I'd be arguing against Edmonds. I merely argue that there are two possibilities, and assuming one is true and the other false given what little I know about the field, and given what I've read, isn't warranted.

This may be a fine nuance, but there you have it.

[Just Me]

25. Distinguishing presumption of a vendetta and the possibility of one,...

,...is a bit too nuanced for me to wrap my brain around.

However, I appreciate your skepticism especially since it has been skepticism which has led me to look more closely at much of what has been happening in my country.

On edit: my fingers are failing to work as fast as my thoughts this evening.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

12. Edmunds charged that other translaters worked for OTHER COUNTRIES

and were hiding important info by not translating and MIS-translating important security info.

Basically, she claimed there were spies and her bosses fired her for her help!

She also claims to have seen info pertaining to 9/11 just after it happened which should have been dealt with before it happened.

And also drug smuggling info relating to 'friendly' countries being swept under the rug and creating security problems.

For all this helpful info, she was fired and gagged legally.

[whalerider55]

15. JOOM

I recall reading one of the letters, before it was classified and still extant, in which she named she named a translator, whose husband was in the Air Force (!), who offered Sibel and her husband a chance to make some easy money through "investments" with the countries about whom she was translating intelligence. Once outed, this FBI translator and her husband went off the radar screen, vamoosed, caught the lasst bus for dodge, and haven't turned up yet, although there are rumors they are in the middle east.

sorry no links, but this was all before she was gagged. Maybe smoking gun has it...
i'm no tin hatter, but this was stuff that she sent on to Senate staff who advocated on her behalf.

there is more here than meets the eye, I think.

whalerider55

[seemslikeadream]

16. Was it this?

>>> The following three letters were recently declared classified, even though they had been considered unclassified since their creation in summer and fall 2002. They regard Sibel Edmonds, the former FBI translator who charges that the FBI's translation service 1) is incompetent and corrupt and 2) received specific warnings about 9/11 before the attacks.

As one step to gag her, the Justice Department refused to let her testify at a civil trial regarding 9/11, invoking the rarely-used "state secret" privilege. Meanwhile, the FBI refused to give Edmonds documents concerning herself, which she requested under FOIA (a court upheld the FBI's refusal). Then the FBI retroactively classified its congressional briefings about Edmonds, including any material resulting from those briefings.

This means that three letters written by Senators Leahy and Grassley are now classified. The first two have been pulled off the Senators' websites, although the third one inexplicably remains online . Edmonds and the Project on Government Oversight have launched separate lawsuits challenging this retroactive classification.

All three letters are reproduced below.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds_letters.htm

[whalerider55]

17. yes...

she refers to someone in the (2) paragraph of the first letter, and then names her in the 60 minutes interview with Ed Bradley- Jan Dickerson. Who now lives in Belgium.

you da man... or woman.

whalerider55

[MrPrax]

13. So...?

so?...'idiot-boy translators' should do fairly well hiring themselves out to try to decipher the rantings of a torture victim? or give them legal advice...

If a human has a body, then a profit can be found, in someway.

[Igel]

23. Edmonds says so.

Even if she uses less loaded language in most places.

And they do get jobs. At least with the less essential agencies.

[leftchick]

6. Link!... Sign Sibel's Petition....

To lift the gag order and release the full report...

http://www.petitiononline.com/deniz18/petition.html

~snip~

To: United States Congress
To: All members of the Congress of the United States of America; all Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.

A Petition to require the immediate release of the entire report completed in July 2004 by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-IG) of its investigation into confirmed reports by FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, but which has remained classified; and further Petition that it be followed by a joint investigation by Congress, including open public hearings, into those reports of wrongdoing, criminal activities, and cover-ups against the security and interests of the United States and its citizenry.

The DOJ-IG began its investigation in March 2002, and at the request of Senators Grassley(R) and Leahy (D) promised expedited release in the Fall of 2002. In June 2002 the FBI, in unclassified Senate briefings, confirmed the validity of Ms. Edmonds reports (Attorney General Ashcroft in May 2004 retroactively classified information from these briefings and gagged the Congress, preventing further Congressional investigation and disclosure). Despite its promise of expedited release, the DOJ-IG repeatedly delayed completion of its report, and when after over two years completed it in July 2004, declared it entirely classified and has not released a single page to the public. Issues covered by the DOJ-IG investigation include; the cover-up of information and leads pre and post 9/11, under the excuse of protecting certain diplomatic relations; espionage activities within (but not limited to) the FBI & Department of Defense; cases of intentional blocking and mistranslation of crucial intelligence by FBI translators and management.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have engaged in a relentless effort to withhold this information in order to prevent public awareness and thus avoid accountability, and in so doing are placing the security of the nation at risk. In this regard ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Grassley(R) and Leahy (D) have stated: “We fear that the designation of information as classified in these cases serves to protect the executive branch against embarrassing revelations and full accountability. Releasing declassified versions of these reports, or at least portions or summaries, would serve the public’s interest, increase transparency, promote effectiveness and efficiency at the FBI, and facilitate Congressional oversight.” Given the seriousness of Ms. Edmonds’ reports and in the best interests of the security of the country, it is imperative that information contained in the DOJ-IG report be made available to the public. It is incumbent upon the Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities and authority as the representatives of the people of the United States, therefore:

[partisan to truth]

14. i signed... kick

[anarchy1999]

7. This is beautiful! Go Sibel!!!

I'll sign and back you every inch of the way. We all need to get behind her. Maybe, just maybe she could be the one........

[BlueDog2u]

8. Support Sibel Edmonds by signing this petition

This takes less than five minutes. Please help. Sibel Edmonds is an American hero. You can help make her safe and support whistle blowing by signing.

Thanks!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=94453&mesg_id=94453

[seemslikeadream]

11. Sibel Edmonds: Turkey, drugs and 9/11

Interesting analysis by John Stanton of the link of international drug trafficking to the 9/11 conspiracy, which pays attention to the Turkish link alluded to by Sibel Edmonds. (Remember, while an FBI translator, she was courted by a Turkish spy ring which appears to have operated with the agency's sanction.)

Here's a memorable quote: "50 billion dollars worth of foreign debt is nothing, it is two lorry loads of heroin."

Turkey, Drugs, Faustian Alliances & Sibel Edmonds
by John Stanton
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 29, 2004


Taking Turkey as the focal point and with a start date of 1998, it is easy to speculate why Sibel Edmonds indicated that there was a convergence of US and foreign counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and US national security and economic interests all of which were too preoccupied to surface critical information warning Americans of the attacks of September 11, 2001. After all, who would have believed drug runners operating in Central Asia? And besides, President Clinton was promoting Turkey, one of the world’s top drug transit points, as a model for Muslim-Western cooperation and a country necessary to reshape the Middle East.

The FBI’s Office of International Operations, in conjunction with the CIA and the US State Department counter-narcotics section, the United Kingdom’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s ISI, the US DEA, Turkey’s MIT, and the governments and intelligence agencies of dozens of nations, were in one way or another involved in the illicit drug trade either trying to stop it or benefit from it. What can be surmised from the public record is that from 1998 to September 10, 2001, the War on Drugs kept bumping into the nascent War on Terror and new directions in US foreign policy.

...

In 1998, the US Department of State (DOS) was finally forced to admit that Turkey was a major refining and transit point for the flow of heroin from Southwest Asia to Western Europe, with small quantities of the stuff finding its way to the streets of the USA. In that same year, Kendal Nezan, writing for Le Monde Diplomatique, reported that MIT, and the Turkish National Police force were actively supporting the trade in illicit drugs not only for fun and profit, but out of desperation.

"After the Gulf War in 1991, Turkey found itself deprived of the all-important Iraqi market and, since it lacked significant oil reserves of its own, it decided to make up for the loss by turning more massively to drugs. The trafficking increased in intensity with the arrival of the hawks in power, after the death in suspicious circumstances of President Turgut Özal in April 1993. According to the minister of interior, the war in Kurdistan had cost the Turkish exchequer upwards of $12.5 billion. According to the daily Hürriyet, Turkey’s heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996...Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking on such a scale. Drug barons have stated publicly, on Turkish television and in the West, that they have been working under the protection of the Turkish government and to its financial benefit. The traffickers themselves travel on diplomatic passports... the drugs are even transported by military helicopter from the Iranian border."
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/June04/Stanton0629.htm

Some other threads on Edmonds and the 9/11 drug connection:

Heroin, Al Qaeda and the Florida Flight School
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1294206

DOJ Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=442067&mesg_id=442067

Explosive new Sibel Edmonds interview
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1555133&mesg_id=1555133

State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=610235&mesg_id=610235


Thanks Minstrel Boy for this post

[Carl Brennan]

19. The fascists even intimidated her family in Turkey

Edmonds was inspired by the widows of 9/11 hard questioning of FBI head Mueller. Note: Kristen Breitweiser is so popular because she merely looks like a concerned widow asking hard questions. The American Public can deal with that, where they may not be able to deal with conspiracy theories.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1053537
The dirty fucking bastards!!!!
.......Going by the book was not without personal sacrifice for Ms. Edmonds. She remembered her erstwhile tea companion, Ms. Dickerson, threatening: "Why would you make such a fuss over translations? You’re not even planning to stay here. Why would you put your life and your family’s lives in danger?"
Ms. Edmonds said that after she reported this threat to Dale Watson, then executive assistant director of the F.B.I., she learned from friends in Turkey that plainclothes agents went to her sister’s apartment in Istanbul with an interrogation warrant.
Ms. Edmonds had already brought her sister and mother to Washington in anticipation of such reprisals by Turkish intelligence. But her younger sister, a totally apolitical airline employee, hasn’t spoken to her since........

[seemslikeadream]

26. Balkans, drugs, bin Laden and friends

The overnight rise of heroin trafficking through Kosovo -- now the most important Balkan route between Southeast Asia and Europe after Turkey -- helped also to fund terrorist activity directly associated with al Qaeda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Opium poppies, which barely existed in the Balkans before 1995, have become the No. 1 drug cultivated in the Balkans after marijuana. Operatives of two al Qaeda-sponsored Islamist cells who were arrested in Bosnia on Oct. 23 were linked to the heroin trade, underscoring the narco-jihad culture of today´s post-war Balkans.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/nov01/hed4304.sh...

From "Osamagate" by Michel Chossudovsky:

According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organised Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the House of Representatives Judicial Committee:

"What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the 'Balkan Route' that links the 'Golden Crescent' of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe."

...

Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Osama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict.

...

While the various Congressional reports confirmed that the US government had been working hand in glove with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, this did not prevent the Clinton and later the Bush Administration from arming and equipping the KLA. The Congressional documents also confirm that members of the Senate and the House knew the relationship of the Administration to international terrorism. To quote the statement of Rep. John Kasich of the House Armed Services Committee: "We connected ourselves with the KLA, which was the staging point for bin Laden...."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO110A.html

Meanwhile, back in Turkey:

Huseyin Basbasin, arrested in 1995 in Holland for smuggling drugs on board of the Lucky-S, claims he smuggled drugs together with Yunus Agar and Yalcin Akcadag (Mehmet Agar's uncle) under the cover of the oil business. Baybasin stated they were transporting oil from Libya, took drugs on board on route, shipping it to Holland. Baybasin further said: "Nobody was allowed near the ship by the police. The police president Suleyman Basgol was there as well. Nobody can claim to have seen nothing. It was all controlled by the Istanbul police." According to Baybasin, Mehmet Agar makes $500.000 a month and he demands that Agar should give an explanation where all his wealth came from.
http://eagle.westnet.gr/~cgian/triangle.htm

[flying_blind]

18. See the whole story here, including retroactively classified docs

http://thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds.htm

http://thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds_letters.htm

[Carl Brennan]

20. Edmonds is a real hero.

http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage1.asp

Here's my synopsis: A whistleblower claims there is a Turkish spy ring that has inflitrated the translation department of the FBI, yet the FBI doesn't seem to care. This apparently has some connection to 9/11. It appears that nobody except a few Democratic Senators and the 9/11 victim's relatives are interested in investigating this major breach of security.

This whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, has already been in the media before. I recently updated an entry for my 9/11 timeline which summarizes the case:

March 22, 2002: Translator Sibel Edmonds later claims that she is fired by the FBI on this day after repeatedly raising suspicions about a coworker named Jan Dickerson. When Dickerson was hired in November 2001, she had connections to a Turkish intelligence officer and had worked with a Turkish organization, both of which were being investigated by the FBI's own counterintelligence unit. Edmonds claims that Dickerson insisted that she alone translate documents relating to the investigation of this organization and official. When Edmonds reviewed Dickerson's translations, she found information that the Turkish officer had spies inside the State Department and Pentagon was not being translated. Dickerson then tried to recruit Edmonds as a spy, and when she refused threatened to kill Edmonds. After her boss and others in the FBI failed to respond to her complaints, she wrote to the Justice Department's inspector general's office in March: "Investigations are being compromised. Incorrect or misleading translations are being sent to agents in the field. Translations are being blocked and circumvented." Edmonds is then fired and she sues the FBI. The FBI eventually concludes Dickerson had left out significant information from her translations. A second FBI whistleblower, John Cole, also claims to know of security lapses in the screening and hiring of FBI translators. In October 2002, at the request of FBI Director Mueller, Attorney General Ashcroft asks a judge to throw out Edmonds's lawsuit against the Justice Department. He says he is applying the state secrets privilege in order "to protect the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States." The supervisor who told her not to make these accusations and also encouraged her to go slow in her translations (see Late September 2001) is later promoted.

Please read the NY Observer article for more recent info. This CBS one is also very informative and contains interesting details not in the NY Observer piece:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/60minutes/mai...

[flying_blind]

27. kick

[seemslikeadream]

28. State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade

(link)
http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet.com/mrn/Sibel-Edmonds.htm
(snip)
State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade
-FBI Whistleblower

Sibel Deniz Edmonds is awaiting a June 14 court hearing which will
determine if she can publicly tell the full story of intelligence failures
over the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. government wants her knowledge to
remain a state secret.

LIVE
AUDIO
INTERVIEW
7th June 9amET

Fintan Dunne
live interview with
Sibel Edmonds

Listen: mp3
Streaming Audio
Win Media Player
Duration 30 mins

Even as a judge prepares to permanently silence her, a former FBI translator of intelligence has implicated the US State Department in quashing investigations which had linked the 9/11 terrorist network to a global drug trafficking ring.

Sibel Edmonds, whose closed-door revelations to Congressional inquiries have been declared state secrets, says that as a result, FBI investigations were ordered terminated.

"There are certain points..., where you have your drug related activities combined with money laundering and information laundering, converging with your terrorist activities," Ms. Edmonds told BreakForNews.com.
(Interview - 7:00 min.)
(snip)

[Carl Brennan]

29. Just like how the BCCI investigations faded away.