October Surprise for Bush & FBI? Sibel Edmonds hints forthcoming scandal

[G_j]

http://www.citypages.com/databank/25/1244/article12523....



NEWS . VOL 25 #1244 . PUBLISHED 10/6/04

An October Surprise for Bush and the FBI?

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds talks about her case --and hints at a forthcoming scandal

by Steve Perry

Sibel Edmonds's claims of incompetence, malfeasance, and possible espionage in the FBI's translation unit have received only sporadic attention since she first aired them widely in a 60 Minutes report in October 2002--not least because of the veil of silence that the Bush Justice Department has tried to draw over the case. In July of this year, a Bush-appointed judge dismissed Edmonds's lawsuit against the FBI on the grounds that the case would necessarily expose state secrets. Judge Reggie Walton's logic parroted that of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who in May 2004 issued an order retroactively classifying all the information that had been presented to Congress in her case because of its alleged national security sensitivity.

But l'affaire Edmonds is heating up again. Last month Edmonds filed a new lawsuit seeking to compel release of the documents in her case under the Freedom of Information law. And last Tuesday's page one New York Times story about the 120,000-hour backlog of untranslated intelligence tapes the FBI is presently sitting on lent additional credence to her charges. (Some al Qaeda communiqués, the Times reported, were automatically deleted by the overloaded computer system in the department before they could be translated.)

It wasn't the first time Edmonds had been featured on the front page of the Times; she was the subject of a July 29 dispatch which disclosed that the DoJ Inspector General had completed a report--classified, of course--concluding that her whistleblowing activities were a factor in her April 2002 firing, after just six months-plus of employment at the FBI.


Despite the legal walls the FBI and the Bush administration have attempted to build around her case, it's nonetheless clear from letters and documents that are already irretrievably in the public realm that Edmonds's claims (give or take those of Richard Clarke) may be the most explosive yet lodged against the U.S. government's anti-terrorism work post-9/11.

..more..

[lostnfound]

1. Link not working? nt

[G_j]

5. sorry.. try this link

http://www.citypages.com/databank/25/1244/article12523.asp

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. i believe the"oct surprise" will be Isreal bombs Iran's nuclear facilities

and than are we into it becuse we are strategically placed in Iraq already ...it is all part of the plan :scared:

[supercrash]

3. Jeeesh

In order for this to be a October surprise, the media would have to report on it

Slim chance of that

[YellowArmBand]

4. Maybe the media reporting would be the October surprise?

[newyawker99]

6. Hi YellowArmBand!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[faithnotgreed]

7. thats it right there.... sibel is fighting the good fight though